AREVA plans MOX fueled Nuclear Reactors in Alberta, Canada

AREVA plans MOX fueled Nuclear Reactors in Alberta, Canada

Nuclear provider targets oilsands

Alberta's oilsands industry faces a natural gas shortage by 2030 without new energy sources to offset gas use in oilsands expansions, the head of nuclear power giant Areva Canada Inc. said Monday.

http://www.canada.com/calgaryherald/news/calgarybusiness/story.html?id=d...

By The Calgary Herald February 26, 2008

Alberta's oilsands industry faces a natural gas shortage by 2030 without new energy sources to offset gas use in oilsands expansions, the head of nuclear power giant Areva Canada Inc. said Monday. Speaking in Calgary, Areva CEO Armand Laferrere said continued oilsands development would consume virtually all of Canada's current natural gas supply -- some 92 per cent -- by 2030.

"You need to diversify," he said on the sidelines of the Canadian Energy Research Institute's natural gas conference. "Natural gas will be part of it, but you need also to have other sources of energy, and nuclear, being competitive and being entirely greenhouse gas free, seems to me to be an obvious part of it."

Alberta's natural gas production is expected to fall from 13 bcf per day in 2007 to 6.7 bcf per day in 2028, leaving a potential shortfall of more than 100 million cubic feet per day. Without the proposed Mackenzie Valley pipeline, Alberta would be forced to import costly liquefied natural gas (LNG) or sharply curtail gas exports that currently account for about a fifth of U.S. supplies.

If predictions of a shortage bear out, oilsands projects would either be forced to shut down or switch to alternative fuels to generate the heat needed to produce steam, Gwozd suggested.

spolczer@theherald.canwest.com

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