The oil sands in northern Alberta, Canada are home to one of the largest hydrocarbon deposits on earth. Huge amounts of hot water-around 50-60 degrees C-are needed for the current extraction procedure and processing technology. The current practice of obtaining water from the Athabasca River and heating it by the burning of natural gas creates severe economic and environmental costs. In fact, 6% of Canada's gas consumption is used for this purpose. As seen, the generation of huge amounts of fossil energy through oil sands extraction requires a substantial amount of fossil energy consumption (natural gas). Geothermal energy has the potential to significantly reduce natural gas consumption and greenhouse gas emissions at competitive costs. In this paper, we investigate how and whether or not the required hot water can be generated from the granitic basement rocks beneath the oil sands mining areas near Fort (Ft.) McMurray, located in the north east of Alberta. Hydraulic fracturing and resulting reservoir scenarios were simulated for different expected conditions in the region in order to find suitable fracturing strategies and conditions for an Enhanced Geothermal System (EGS). The simulations show that suitable fracturing treatments can increase the hydraulic performance of the system and that EGS heat generation can significantly reduce the environmental impact at comparable costs associated with the current processing technology. With this effort, significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and natural gas consumption can be achieved. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.