No nukes for Alberta oil sands

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Gary Park

Petroleum News Calgary correspondent

Alberta Energy Minister Murray Smith has scuttled the idea of using nuclear reactors as a power source for his province’s oil sands region.

“We would be very concerned at this time with respect to security of the installation,” he told a Ziff Group North American Gas Strategies Conference in Calgary.

“Having a nuclear installation close to an asset that is so vital to Alberta’s economic development is an absolute, legitimate concern.”

Asked to identify the government’s primary worry he said: “Terrorism.”

The Canadian government agency, Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd., has been lobbying for the use of its Candu reactors as an alternative to the consumption of natural gas since early this year.

An Atomic Energy of Canada spokesman said Smith’s concerns are a “typical reaction to nuclear when you’re sort of unenlightened and we have to do a better job of enlightening people.”

A C$35,000 study completed in June said that the start-up capital costs of a reactor would be higher, but would quickly offset the costs of using natural gas in the extraction and processing of raw bitumen.