Efficiency and environmental effects in the oil sands of Alberta

Rather than processing oil sands as a petroleum deposit, would it be more cost-effective to manage them as mushy coal? That is, instead of dealing with the processing and refining issues described in the article by Murray Gray, Zhenghe Xu, and Jacob Masliyah, why not build an on-site power plant to burn the crushed oil-sands ore and transport and then sell the resulting electricity? As an added benefit, the waste would probably be a coarse clinker, rather than the water-rich sludge now in the tailings ponds.