How One Alberta Clean-Tech Company Is Trying To Improve Oil Sands Extraction

The Alberta oil sands offer an immense supply of potential energy, but this valuable resource is often viewed negatively because of the environmental impact of the extraction processes.

In particular, Steam-Assisted Gravity Drainage (SAGD), the most common method for accessing the heavy bitumen deep underground, not only burns fuel to generate the steam, which can generate significant greenhouse gas emissions, but it’s a high-cost production method that consumes an enormous amount of water. Bitumen deposits, which are closer to the surface, have historically been produced using surface mining, which requires extensive disruption to the land surface, and large volumes of fresh water to separate the oil from the sand.
How to extract oil in a more environmentally friendly way is a question that oil sands producers have been asking for a long time. Calgary-based Acceleware might have an answer. This clean tech innovator has developed a solution that could dramatically reduce the capital and resource-intensity of both in situ and surface mining oil sands production. Acceleware’s RF XL heating technology allows producers to generate steam from water that already exists in the ground, enabling them to lower operating costs, decrease GHG emissions, reduce land use, and eliminate the need for solvents and external water.
With the potential to profoundly alter the economic and environmental reality of the oil sands – RF XL may reduce capital costs by as much as 70 percent and operating costs by up to 40 percent when compared to SAGD – Acceleware’s solution has been rapidly gaining momentum. It won the Emerging Clean Technology award at the 2017 Global Petroleum Show in June, and on November 3, Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC) and Emissions Reduction Alberta (ERA) have announced that they are making a combined investment of $10 million towards Acceleware’s continued development of the technology.