System and method for minimizing the negative environmental impact of the oilsands industry

A method for extracting hydrocarbon from oil sands ore, the method comprising:

• contacting oil sands ore with extraction liquid to form a slurry, said slurry comprising solids and a bitumen extract;
• separating said bitumen extract from said slurry to form liquid wet tailings, said liquid wet tailing being comprised of said solids and said extraction liquid;
• heating said liquid wet tailings to evaporate said extraction liquid and to form dry tailings and a vapor phase;
• recovering heat from said vapor phase to condensate said vapor phase into a liquid phase;
• and
• combining said dry tailings with water wet tailings produced from an extraction process to form strengthened tailings, suitable for disposable.

A method for extracting hydrocarbon from oil sands ore, the method comprising:

• contacting oil sands ore with extraction liquid to form a slurry, said slurry comprising solids and a bitumen extract;
• separating said bitumen extract from said slurry to form liquid wet tailings, said liquid wet tailing being comprised of said solids and said extraction liquid;
• heating said liquid wet tailings to evaporate said extraction liquid and to form dry tailings and a vapor phase;
• and
• recovering heat from said vapor phase to condensate said vapor phase into a liquid phase,
• wherein the liquid wet tailings are thickened fine tailings from a water-based extraction process, and
• wherein said thickened fine tailings are comprised of underflow from a thickener, selected from a group consisting of a high rate thickener and a paste thickener.

A method for extracting hydrocarbon from oil sands ore, the method comprising:

• contacting oil sands ore with extraction liquid to form a slurry, said slurry comprising solids and a bitumen extract;
• separating said bitumen extract from said slurry to form liquid wet tailings, said liquid wet tailing being comprised of said solids and said extraction liquid;
• heating said liquid wet tailings to evaporate said extraction liquid and to form dry tailings and a vapor phase;
• and
• recovering heat from said vapor phase to condensate said vapor phase into a liquid phase,
• wherein said dry tailings are used for mine construction material, mine refill, or direct reclamation.

A method for extracting bitumen, the method comprising the steps of:

• combusting carbon based fuel to generate heat;
• delivering oil sands tailing material to an apparatus configured to mechanically separate a portion of the liquid in a tailings flow so as to generate a concentrated oil sands tailings material;
• delivering the concentrated oil sands tailings material to an apparatus configured to thermally evaporate said liquid from the concentrated oil sands tailings materials with said combustion heat so as to produce an output material consisting of a dried oil sands tailings material and a gas stream;
• separating said dried oil sands tailing material from said gas stream;
• and
• transferring heat from said gas stream to a liquid stream used in a bitumen extraction process.

A process for extracting bitumen from oil sand, comprising:

• mixing mined oil sand with a liquid to produce an oil sand slurry;
• separating the oil sands slurry to a bitumen rich stream and solids rich stream;
• combusting fuel to generate combustion heat;
• drying the solids rich stream in a solids dryer with the combustion heat to produce dry tailings;
• and
• integrating energy used in the solids dryer with a water-based extraction process by recovering waste heat from the solids dryer in a warm water stream that is used in the water-based extraction process.