Dr. McGee said the amount of water used in the process is minimal, and that much of the heating — and thus the use of electricity — can occur in off-peak hours, making more efficient use of generating capacity. When the production drops off, the wells can be plugged and the entire operation moved a short distance, where it can begin again. “This is like mining with electrodes,” he said.

But electrical heating is not the only alternative to steam. Another Calgary company, Petrobank Energy & Resources, burns some of the bitumen in place to heat the rest of it.

Combustion has been tried in one form or another in the oil industry for nearly a century. The Petrobank method, called toe-to-heel air injection, uses a vertical well drilled above the toe, or end, of a horizontal production well. Steam is injected in the vertical well first, but only for two to three months, to warm the bitumen. Then when air is injected, the bitumen begins to burn like a charcoal briquette. The combustion front travels very slowly above the production well, heating the bitumen so that it can be pumped out.

One advantage of the process is that only the heaviest hydrocarbons in the bitumen burn, leaving the higher-quality lighter fractions to drain into the production well, said David McLellan, Petrobank’s manager of intellectual property. The bitumen that is produced needs less dilution with other hydrocarbons to be able to flow in a pipeline.

“We’re the only production method that upgrades the oil in-situ,” Mr. McLellan said.

Petrobank, which has run demonstration projects since 2006, has now expanded one of its field test sites, which the company expects will start producing oil in commercial quantities next year.

But getting other companies to use any of these alternative technologies may be difficult.

“You’re dealing with an industry that I wouldn’t say is the most innovative industry,” said Dr. McGee, the McMillan-McGee chief executive. “When you’re trying to do a billion-dollar sale, if you have the term ‘new technology’ attached to it, it doesn’t go too far.”

But E-T Energy, Dr. McGee noted, now has an agreement with Total, the French oil company, that gives Total an option to license the technology.