I am willing to grudgingly accept nuclear plants in some places under certain circumstances to try to alleviate global warming, but this is the worst possible use of nuclear. Setting up nuclear in order to be able to put more CO2 into the atmosphere. Using a lesser evil to propagate a larger one.

As for the comment that there is no way to stop the tar sands from being exploited because the money is too big, I would dare say that the money will not be too big. Some business people still seem to think that global warming and the environmental movement are still inconsequential when the truth is quite different. Global warming will lead to warmer winters in temperate zones (the rich world) which will lead to price drops for oil as has occurred this winter. Furthermore as more and more countries, states, cities and towns, businesses, and individuals adopt measures to limit their personal contribution to global warming, be it through use of alternative energy or through reduced consumption or a combination of both, demand moderation will lead to price moderation. There is no guarantee that in ten years time, the price of oil will be high enough to justify the high-cost extraction of Canada's tar oil. I expect oil will still be expensive in relation to historic averages, but I seriously doubt it will be profitable enough to mine the tar sands, much less to build a nuke plant to help mine them.

the comments on nuclear power in the article are as usual misleading to the point of misinformation...
but
more to the point
i can see no reason to use the nuclear power indirectly....
a nuclear power generator can be set up to provide gas and oil substitutes more directly than this...

this looks on the surface, wasteful and even impractical in view of the pollution and water problems of the area....

so, is this just a pork project in disguise?

First, this is a ridiculous project. However, at the rate things are going, it very well may happen.

I didn't think nuclear even broke even, financially? I thought it only worked with government subsidy, and total disregard to all the waste created in processing?

To Houston: Any serious heating savings from global warming alieviating the need for heating oil would likely be offset by increased demand for air conditioning.
and
"more and more countries, states, cities and towns, businesses, and individuals adopt measures to limit their personal contribution to global warming," I'm sorry, but how exactly do you expect these things to happen? Only a small minority of the world's population is well enough off to make decisions on a moral abstraction (global warming). The vast majority of the world will make their life decisions based on economics. Oil will be extracted from sands as long as it is economical.

Shaking head...this does not surprise me, but unless we wake up, the nuclear industry is GOING TO WIN, and everything will be hunky dory until there is a MAJOR ACCIDENT. You want to know more about how the nuclear industry with the help of DOE is decieving the world, follow the Green Nuclear Butterfly Blog, and get involved in the fight.

The next battle ground is going to be the aging Indian Point reactors that are polluting the Hudson River with strontium-90

'To Houston: Any serious heating savings from global warming alieviating the need for heating oil would likely be offset by increased demand for air conditioning.'
One, it requires considerably less energy to cool a home than to heat it since the cooling process is one of moving heat from one location to another whereas heating requires the actual 'consumption' of energy, such as burning some form of carbon. A refrigerator works by shifting heat from inside the box to the outside, which simply requires the operation of a small pump. I can operate my fridge-freezer with PV and wind generator. I can NOT heat much food with my PV- wind system. The cooling process is much less energy intensive than an equivalent heating process. Second, assuming use of electricity (rather than use of natural non-electric methods of passive cooling) to cool a building, the smaller energy requirements of air-conditioning as opposed to fossil-fuel burning for heating makes it much easier to meet from renewable energy - especially from solar electric energy which produces most energy exactly when air-conditioners are demanding most energy. I still believe warmer winters and summers will lead to considerable less combined use of fossil-fuel for both heating and cooling combined.

'and
"more and more countries, states, cities and towns, businesses, and individuals adopt measures to limit their personal contribution to global warming," I'm sorry, but how exactly do you expect these things to happen? Only a small minority of the world's population is well enough off to make decisions on a moral abstraction (global warming). The vast majority of the world will make their life decisions based on economics. Oil will be extracted from sands as long as it is economical.'
First, everyone everywhere makes decisions on BOTH economic AND moral grounds. Humans in Africa are still humans like those well-off in the first world. They ALSO care about their society and how their decisions either degrade or improve their society. It is true that their economic conditions limits their scope of choice. But to state that they don't make choices based on moral grounds is... well, I am not poor or from the third world, but I think I would be insulted. And 'rich' people from the first world also make their choices based on BOTH economics AND morals - the only difference is that their wealth gives them greater scope of choice. Second, their greater wealth also gives them greater scope to make BOTH a greater negative or positive impact on the planet. Poor people don't have the money to consume great amounts of resources. So while they have less ability to make 'green' choices, their choices, due to their poverty, means that their individual impact is smaller on the environment than that of a 'rich' westerner. The negative habits of the 'rich' are what is in most need of changing toward positive habits for the environments benefit - and I live in the West (Euorpe and US), and I see improvements all around me every day. And the improvements are increasing in pace. So I still think the environmental movement will continue to make an impact on the consumption patterns of the 'rich' and this will only increase for the better. This WILL have an impact on demand for oil and thus have a moderating effect on the price. Third, global warming is not a moral abstraction. The causes are not a moral abstraction. The consequences are not a moral abstraction. The solutions are not a moral abstraction. An example of a moral abstraction is deciding whether to argue that something real isn't.
As for oil being taken from the sands as long as it is economical, I think I more or less made the same point. But in my opinion, I doubt that it will continue to be profitable in the near future for reasons already stated. Unless, of course, the Canadian govt pumps subsidy money in to help out the industtry - a real possibility unless the green movement stands up and puts a foot down to prevent it.

I don't like the tar oil, and I hope it disappears sooner rather than later. Legislation to stop it would be nice, but I don't see it happening. What I do see is the economics flip-flopping to stop the tar mining.

Apparently, it's profitable to use nuclear steam and hydrogen to transform tarsand to gasoline.
From this, it's only a small step to use nuclear heat and hydrogen to transform biomass (and garbage) to gasoline.
Using this process, a small amount of (any kind of) biomass can be transformed in a high amount of fuel, with an almost 100% efficiency (of biomass-carbon to fuel-carbon).