Uranium reactors are here today. Thorium is still in the future. If Thorium was so great India would be leading the world in this given their thorium supplies
Steel plants are possible but there is a huge surplus of high quality iron ores in Africa, Brazil and Australia that it is hard to compete against. Labrador does okay but it is tough for them. There is some tech from AccelorMittal which could help but it is still a ways out.
Benefit of the oil sands is that they are a source of bitumen for roads. But the authorities never want to invest in infrastructure.
Pipeline construction has limitations, not as great an option as people believe.
Lots of fresh water available, desalination of water is super expensive, cheaper just to move it around.
Hydrogen pipelines are very difficult. Better to use endpoint conversion of natural gas.
If you want hothouses, use cogen from power plants - carbon or nuclear.
Pollution control - put in proper fines and prison sentences so people take it seriously.
States like enriched uranium for weapons development. Candu uses just use low grade uranium. Both of these have waste material with long half-lives. Thorium was looked at in the 60s, deemed to be very safe (budget cuts then), its waste have shorter half lifes and it can't be used for bombs. Bill Gates was going to build Thorium reactor in China, but that got cancelled.
The problem with steel manufacturing is the war in Ukraine, where Ukraine and Russia made up 30-35 % of iron ore production. Australis mostly exports to china. With Trudeau anti CO2 shit, hard to get any steel manufacturing up and running. Got to make this industry more competitive. If your going to build railroads, pipelines and manufacturing plants you are going to need steel.
The thing about heavy oil, is you can get a lot of different oils and gases by cracking it. The oil can be used to make plastics, and all we stupid humans can do is burn it.
Pipelines gives us a east-west approach for transportation of oil/gas. Although it cost lot its easier than shipping it. Many trains for transport??
As for the desalination (by ROD or Evaporation), the reason is I look at California, and the Colorado river and how its Lake Mead is at a all time low because they had a drought for the last 20 years. ROD plants in California could help to fill up Lake Mead. We could do that here but it would be more for Alberta and Sask. Maybe for the interior like Okanogan Lake, Shuswap Lake. Today we seem to get bigger downpours like the ones that caused the dam in the Chilcotin River.
Another thing that we have been doing for about 100 years is pumping water from deep inside the land. Those interior wells are drying up and need to be replentished.
Industry alone for making pipeline (oil and water) would be a boom for years for manufacturers here in Canada. And we haven't even touched on northern oil resources which could require a pipe line north.
Hydrogen from methane can be done but makes too much CO2. Rather go with electrolysis to by pass CO2 produce from the methane. I just think methane is a short term solution and not long term energy solution. You can make hydrogen any where you have water. Thus another case for a water pipeline inland.
Pumping water or electrical lines to make hydrogen in an local area is safer that an natural gas line.
For the hothouses I would assume local solar power or cheap power made from nuclear power plant (or local prices could be made lower due to x provicial borders of electricity). A cogen plant uses natural gas to turn a generator and the exhaust gases are used to run a steam generator. Then I guess the waste heat gases could be cooled for the CO2 gases for use in hothouses. Baby tree growth??
The problem with pollution control is smokestacks, companies don't want to cut into profits to do this. I mean if Sudbury can build a 200 ft smokestack for the gasses to overfly the city.....Put the investors in jail too!! after all its all about profit...