Oilsands companies exploring nuclear power to reduce emissions

The urgent international need to slash emissions in the facial area of a expanding climate crisis is driving renewed curiosity in nuclear power — and couple of places much more so than in Canada’s oilsands.

Although the thought of utilizing nuclear electricity to switch the fossil fuels burned in oilsands production has been bandied about for decades, some gurus say the actuality could be just a decade or so absent. On paper, at least, there is much more prospective to deploy tiny modular reactor (SMR) know-how in the oilsands area of Alberta than any place else in the state.

“Devoid of a question the oilsands is the largest sector for smaller modular reactors in Canada,” stated John Gorman, president and chief executive of the Canadian Nuclear Affiliation. “It is really a little something that some firms are incredibly actively searching at.”

Little modular reactors are a style of nuclear structure that is far smaller than a regular nuclear reactor. Building in between 10 and 300 MW of electrical power, SMRs are entirely scalable and are created to be crafted economically in manufacturing facility situations, alternatively than on internet site like a huge-scale regular reactor.

Although SMRs are not yet commercially readily available, the technologies is having near. The Worldwide Atomic Vitality Company estimates that approximately 100 SMRs could be working all around the globe by 2030. In Canada, four provinces — New Brunswick, Ontario, Saskatchewan and Alberta — have agreed to collaborate on the improvement of SMRs as a clean power possibility, and Canadian scientists are doing work on new components and types that could make SMRs realistic in a large vary of new makes use of.

Proponents say SMRs could likely be made use of not only to deliver clean electric power to smaller electrical power grids, like those in rural locations, but also to provide heat for normal useful resource industries. In the oilsands, operators use huge amounts of substantial-temperature warmth to generate the steam essential to extract bitumen from sand — and they get that heat by burning all-natural fuel.

In overall, the oil and fuel sector is dependable for 30 per cent of Canada’s purely natural fuel use, which suggests confronting the industry’s fossil gas utilization will be crucial if Canada is to meet up with its climate commitments.

The oilsands sector alone — by way of an business identified as Pathways Alliance, which is created up of Canadian Natural Sources Ltd., Cenovus Strength Inc., ConocoPhillips Canada, Imperial Oil Ltd., MEG Vitality Corp. and Suncor Energy Inc. — has fully commited to lessening greenhouse fuel emissions from oilsands production by 22 million tonnes every year by 2030, and achieving a objective of net-zero emissions by 2050.

To enable get there, the Pathways Alliance has proposed a important carbon capture and storage transportation line that would capture CO2 from oilsands facilities and transport it to a storage facility close to Cold Lake, Alta. That project by yourself could supply about 10 million tonnes of emissions reductions per year and could be up and working by the conclude of the 10 years.

But Pathways has also formed a committee to formally investigate nuclear as an alternative to purely natural fuel in oilsands production.

“Completely, we are seeking at SMRs as a lower or no-emission source of the large temperature warmth we will need,” reported Martha Corridor Findlay, main local weather officer for Suncor Power Inc. “But it has to be economically feasible. It has to make feeling.”

Findlay reported the market will need clarity close to what amount of authorities monetary assist, if any, will be available for SMRs. There are also thoughts around the regulatory procedure, provided the strength sector’s discouraging working experience in latest many years having large-scale initiatives approved.

“It really is Canada — it will take a really lengthy time to create anything at all,” she claimed. “But if we want to see implementation by 2030, or into the early 2030s, we have to be carrying out this things now. We have to be looking at it now.”

Dan Wicklum, president and CEO of non-financial gain advisory team The Changeover Accelerator and the former CEO of the Canadian Oilsands Innovation Alliance, reported the vitality sector has formally evaluated the nuclear opportunity in the previous and discarded it, mostly due to the fact of cost.

But he mentioned the industry’s new focus on of net-zero emissions “changes everything.”

“We can no for a longer time just do the matters we have been heading to do to lower emissions. Optionality has fallen off the table for us,” Wicklum claimed. “In an emissions elimination paradigm, there is no query that nuclear is currently being taken incredibly very seriously.”

Nevertheless, Wicklum included that for any significant-scale emissions reductions projects to get off the floor, governments and sector will have to occur to an agreement about whose responsibility it is to spend for them.

“Field is wanting to the federal govt to say, ‘Make it worth our when,'” he explained. “They want more taxpayer dollars. They’ve effectively said you will find not ample public assist suitable now for them to act. And mainly because of that, I consider, the feasibility of SMRs — as well as carbon capture and storage, and so on — is totally in query.”