Explore how Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) researchers are combining existing energy technology with new, cleaner energy advancements. Could carbon-negative fuels be far behind?

May 2022

by Sarah Buckingham

What fuels you?

Fuels power our daily lives, from the vehicles that transport our food and deliver online orders, to heating and cooling our homes and powering the businesses we support, and much more. In fact, you interact with fuels a lot more than you might realize.

When doesn’t Sunday fall on a Sunday? When it’s Sun Day, May 3 — a special day set aside every year to appreciate solar energy. As nations around the world look for ways to achieve net-zero emissions, one of the greatest sources of clean energy is beaming down from the blue sky above — on clear days, of course.When doesn’t Sunday fall on a Sunday? When it’s Sun Day, May 3 — a special day set aside every year to appreciate solar energy. As nations around the world look for ways to achieve net-zero emissions, one of the greatest sources of clean energy is beaming down from the blue sky above — on clear days, of course.

A unique geological formation in Canada called the Smoking Hills — because it is literally smouldering — provides signs that Mars may have been a more habitable environment than commonly believed.

April 2022

Government researchers have travelled to Canada’s High Arctic each year since 1959 to measure glacier activity. And since the early 1990s, they’ve also monitored the weather stations that have been installed on the ice. But that all changed in 2020, when travel plans were abruptly cancelled due to COVID-19.

Glaciers the world over are melting and disappearing. In Western Canada, they’re thinning and retreating at dramatic and ever-increasing rates.

Have you ever wondered how forest researchers know how many trees are in a country as large as Canada? Look up, way up, because the answer lies in space.

March 2022

By Monica Rai, Communications Advisor, Scientific Communications Team

Marie-Claude Gros-Louis, who works at the Laurentian Forestry Centre (LFC) of the Canadian Forest Service, is a professional appreciated by both her colleagues and her clients. She is a triathlete and an entrepreneur, and her generosity toward the causes that are dear to her seems to have no limits!

The Women in Cleantech challenge has recognized a Calgary team’s groundbreaking technology to make lithium extraction more sustainable. The three-year-long competition to support women tech entrepreneurs was sponsored by Natural Resources Canada and powered by MaRS Discovery District.

February 2022

Shiva Tirdad is a new geophysical researcher and artificial intelligence specialist at Natural Resources Canada.

As a young girl growing up in Nova Scotia, Ellen Whitman was at the top of her class for biology, chemistry and all of her science electives — but she never thought she “fit” the role of scientist.