Our History

100 Years of Science and Technology

Throughout its 100-year history, CanmetENERGY has developed and demonstrated technologies to respond to the needs of the day. Many of these technologies have already had economic impacts and have reached the commercialization stage. Others are now poised to make a contribution to supplying energy more cleanly and using it more efficiently, thus contributing to a cleaner environment in Canada, and in many cases, around the world.

CanmetENERGY traces its origins to the Fuels and Fuels Testing Division, the senior division of the Mines Branch, which was created in 1907 when the Geology and Mines Act was promulgated by Parliament, establishing a Department of Mines. First assignments of the Fuels Testing Station, built in 1909 at 562 Booth Street (Ottawa, Ontario), were to investigate the harvesting and utilization of peat and to survey the coal deposits of Canada. Dr. Eugene Haanel, the first Head of the Mines Branch, is commemorated in the name of the road leading to the Bells Corners Complex nearby Ottawa, with Timm Drive commemorating the third Head, William Timm.

The Mines Branch was renamed CANMET, the Canada Centre for Mineral and Energy Technology in 1975. The fuels (and later energy) component of the Mines Branch/CANMET has been concerned with energy and minerals and has continued to the present day. Other resource-based groups within the organization over the century have focused on the mining, minerals and metallurgical needs of the country. CANMET was later divided into its energy and minerals groups.

Today, CanmetENERGY is an acknowledged world-class technological organization addressing Canadian energy S&T.