Yes.
Evidence of meeting #28 for Natural Resources in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was energy.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Evidence of meeting #28 for Natural Resources in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was energy.
A recording is available from Parliament.
4:30 p.m.
President and Corporate Director, Bruneau Resources Management Limited
Yes.
4:30 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Lee Richardson
Thank you, Mr. Ouellet. That was quite remarkable today.
We're going to move on to Mr. Bevington, from the NDP.
4:30 p.m.
NDP
Dennis Bevington NDP Western Arctic, NT
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, gentlemen, for joining us today.
First, to Mr. Henuset, I'm curious about some of the numbers you're using here. A 200,000-barrel-a-day plant would be serviced by how large a nuclear facility?
4:30 p.m.
Energy Alberta Corporation
A nuclear facility, if you use a CANDU 6, produces about 740 megawatts of electricity. If you convert that to steam, rather than producing electricity, if you use the steam for SAGD, it will produce about 220,000 barrels a day. We don't have a SAGD process at this time to actually that size. It's about 220,000 barrels.
4:30 p.m.
NDP
Dennis Bevington NDP Western Arctic, NT
But we're looking at a tar sands expansion of 15 times that size.
4:30 p.m.
NDP
Dennis Bevington NDP Western Arctic, NT
You're proposing a single plant for 2016. It's not rationally going to cover the expansion that's going to take place in the system.
4:30 p.m.
NDP
Dennis Bevington NDP Western Arctic, NT
If we're going to be investing in other systems to make that expansion, is that not correct?
4:30 p.m.
Energy Alberta Corporation
Each system is different. In the SAGD process, we were talking about just using the straight steam. In the mining processes, they use electricity as well as hot water; they don't use as much steam. For the mining operations, one facility could be used for multiple facilities. You can transport hot water about 50 miles, whereas you can only transfer the steam about 15 miles.
4:30 p.m.
NDP
Dennis Bevington NDP Western Arctic, NT
That's fine.
That doesn't cover the upgrading of the bitumen.
4:35 p.m.
NDP
Dennis Bevington NDP Western Arctic, NT
That doesn't cover the hydrogen addition to the bitumen, and that would require probably what in terms of nuclear capacity to produce the electricity, through electrolysis, to produce the hydrogen required for the upgrading?
4:35 p.m.
Energy Alberta Corporation
That's correct. Right now, the natural gas usage comparable, using electricity to hydrogen, is about $12 a gigajoule. So we're not cost-effective right now, because natural gas is cheaper.
4:35 p.m.
NDP
Dennis Bevington NDP Western Arctic, NT
Yes, isn't it about 600 megawatts for a 60,000-barrel-a-day upgrading facility?
4:35 p.m.
NDP
Dennis Bevington NDP Western Arctic, NT
Okay. So in reality, if you were going to use nuclear in the tar sands industry in the future to provide synthetic oil at the end of the day, you'd have an enormous number of nuclear reactors.
