Climate change and sustainability: 2025–2026 Annual Report

The global push to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is accelerating the electrification of ground and air transportation. This is creating an urgent need for more efficient, sustainable motor technologies. However, the powerful magnets that drive electric motors are made with rare earth elements. While Canada has significant reserves of these metals, extracting them is complex and costly. To improve sustainability on all fronts, we have pioneered new manufacturing processes and prototyped innovative designs to enhance motor performance and make better use of limited rare earth resources.

Senior research officers Fabrice Bernier and Jean‑Michel Lamarre have been working for nearly a decade on new ways of fabricating magnetic materials. In that time, they developed a cold spray additive manufacturing methodology (a form of 3D printing) that can quickly create composite permanent magnets with high mechanical strength, with no assembly required. The process involves a programmable robot and pressurized gas system that spray a fine powder onto a surface. Because the powder can be formed into complex geometries, the resulting magnets can be precisely shaped and positioned into a motor where they will be most effective and achieve better performance. Using that method, the team fabricated a prototype motor last year that could deliver higher rotational speeds for greater power density.

New approaches to meet evolving market realities

Cold spray additive manufacturing enables us to create lighter, more efficient motors in a way that significantly reduces the need for rare earth elements. This is more important than ever given that geopolitical tensions, export restrictions and high price volatility are limiting the availability of some elements typically used in magnets, such as neodymium.

"The current situation forced us to adapt quickly to maintain the momentum of our work," says Lamarre. "We diversified the range of materials we develop and investigated alternative permanent magnet compositions that could reduce our dependence on constrained supply chains. Among these, samarium-iron-nitride emerged as one of the most promising alternatives to neodymium due to its excellent temperature stability and strong magnetic properties, making it particularly suitable for next-generation electric motors."

Recognizing the need to better conserve limited and expensive rare earth elements, in 2025–2026, the team also developed a new system that can recover and reuse most of the sprayed powder with minimal reduction in its magnetic properties. This milestone not only enhances the environmental and economic sustainability of cold spray additive manufacturing but also strengthens Canada's capacity to produce high-performance magnetic materials while reducing waste and reliance on critical raw materials.

Industry partnerships to strengthen Canada's cleantech leadership

Over the past few years, the continued advancement of cold sprayed magnet technology has drawn significant attention from Canadian industry. We are now working in close collaboration with several manufacturers to integrate cold spray additive manufacturing technologies into their next generation of electric motors—and in some cases, enable them to produce their own permanent magnets using our process. In the current socio-economic context, fostering the domestic development and manufacturing of sustainable technologies is critical.

"Through the NRC's unique expertise in magnetic materials, advanced motor design and fabrication processes, we are supporting the creation of a resilient national value chain. Spanning raw material producers to component manufacturers and motor designers, this value chain is essential for Canada's leadership in the global cleantech landscape," says Bernier.

By driving innovation in the technologies that are central to the country's transition to a low-carbon economy, this research is set to deliver lasting benefits for people and communities across Canada. The project is creating new business opportunities, high-quality jobs and skill development in emerging technology sectors—all of which contribute to a more sustainable and competitive national economy.

"This research is helping Canada build cleaner, lighter and more cost-effective electric motors that will power a greener economy and strengthen the country's leadership in sustainable technologies."

As Canada aims to reach net-zero emissions by 2050, some industries, such as shipping, will be more difficult to decarbonize than others. In collaboration with the Canadian Coast Guard, we are researching ways to improve the performance of alternatives to diesel fuel for ocean-going vessels.

The shipping industry continues to rely on diesel because alternatives perform poorly or freeze completely in the cold temperatures of the harshest marine environments. A blend of diesel and a low-carbon fuel, such as biodiesel or renewable diesel, is currently the best path to improve engine performance and reduce emissions. Our team is working to find the right balance in these fuel blends so they can function at extreme temperatures while staying compatible with existing vessels. This research could also be applied in remote Arctic and Northern communities that use diesel-powered generators for their energy needs.

But switching fuels is not enough. That is why we are also helping operators take the data they currently collect for navigation, such as wind speed and engine power, and use it to improve environmental performance. By integrating new types of sensors and developing new ways of visualizing the data, we are creating a more holistic dataset that will help operators identify the adjustments needed to reduce fuel consumption and emissions.

At our modular agriculture research station (MARS) in Saskatchewan, we are testing new technologies to make indoor farming more productive, energy efficient and economically viable—with the goal of improving food security in Northern and remote communities. With MARS, we can study how well a modular hydroponic growth system operates in both hot summers and extremely cold winters. We are also exploring which crop species can be grown most effectively in these systems.

Key to the success of MARS is that the research is being done in collaboration with Saskatchewan Polytechnic (to help train people on the system) and local Indigenous communities. We worked with Indigenous artist Megan Currie to create an exterior wrap for the MARS facility featuring a design that symbolizes collaboration, empowerment, teamwork and community. It is a powerful visual representation of the rights of Indigenous Peoples to control the production, distribution and choice of the foods they eat.

Together with our Indigenous partners, we developed a radio frequency instrument to monitor the safety of winter trails that pass over frozen lakes and rivers. Towed behind a snowmobile, the SmartICE instrument measures ice thickness in real time. The data is then converted into colour-coded tracks on maps so trail users know which routes are safe and which to avoid.

This project is a collaboration between the NRC, SmartICE, the Tłı̨chǫ Government, the Community Government of Wekweètì and the Aqqiumavvik Society. Indigenous knowledge of ice dynamics and travel safety were deeply embedded into the instrument's design and testing. In addition to developing the technology, we co-created a training curriculum on how to operate the instrument and produce the travel maps that can be shared within and between communities. In 2025–2026, we further refined the training material, with a total of 21 community members now trained on the equipment.

In September 2025, the European Space Agency selected the Wind Velocity Radar Nephoscope (WIVERN) for its Earth Explorer 11 mission. The NRC has been a key contributor to the project over the past decade.

The Earth Explorer satellites are each dedicated to observing a different aspect of the Earth's environment. Scheduled for launch in early 2030, WIVERN is the first satellite capable of measuring wind and precipitation within clouds. This could improve forecasts of hazardous weather systems and provide new insights into severe storms. Scientists from across the NRC have worked on WIVERN since 2014, in collaboration with their European research and academic partners. With our expertise in atmospheric research and instrumentation, we provided technical oversight during the early stages of the project. More recently, we enhanced WIVERN so it could make airborne radar and radiometer observations with a single instrument—a key aspect of its unique design that will push the boundaries of Earth science and satellite technology.