A perspective on sustainable energy research efforts in Canada

Unofficial AI-generated summary based on the public title and abstract. Not an official translation.

🔬研究者:Provides a comprehensive bibliometric overview of Canadian sustainable energy research, useful for identifying research gaps and collaboration opportunities.

🏛政策担当者:Offers insights into Canada's research landscape, which could inform policy on research funding and international partnerships.

Energy has been a vital commodity for sustaining the life and economic activities and assuring the quality of life and techological advancements. The global picture is not as rossy as expected. One needs to note that at present, a total of 13% of the global population still does not have access to basic electricity. Furthermore, 3 billion people still supply their energy need for cooking and heating from coal, wood, or animal waste, ending up in millions of deaths every year due to indoor air pollution.1 Therefore, it is crucial to provide access to clean, affordable, and sustainable energy for all. In this regard, the United Nations Assembly in 2015 presented Sustainable Development Goal 7 (SDG 7) that defines five objectives to be achieved by 2030.2 All proposed pathways for the energy transition to provide electricity, heating, cooling and power for transportation for people and their comfort are expected to consider sustainable energy sources and technologies as solutions to problems rising from hydrocarbon-based fuel consumption. Energy applications, including production, storage, conversion, and utilization, becomes the primary contributor to the currently in-action climate change by covering more than 70% of global greenhouse gas emissions.3 Therefore, sustainable energy technologies are essential to achieve a nature-friendly energy transition for a cleaner and more peaceful environment. Sustainable energy is energy generated and consumed in a manner that supplies the present demand without preventing future generations from meeting the energy demand of their time.4 In general, it is thought that sustainable energy and renewable energy have the same meaning, and they are used instead of each other. However, it should be noted that some particular “renewable energy” projects might not be totally sustainable. For instance, the use of agriproducts or clearing off forests for biofuel production might damage the environment more than conventional methods. Therefore, instead of end products, energy systems should be analyzed from the extraction of the resources to disposal to decide either sustainable or not. This approach is also known as the life cycle assessment (LCA) method. Furthermore, energy systems should also be analyzed in terms of environmental impacts through an LCA methodology since the operational emissions might not reflect the system's real impact on the environment. For instance, in the operation phase, electricity consumption does not emit any harmful fumes; therefore, electricity is a carbon-free substance. However, this term might change 180° with the production method of electricity. If electricity is supplied from a coal-based power plant, such electricity consumption will make a significant indirect contribution to climate change. The importance of sustainable energy for humankind can be expressed 3-fold; energy security, environment, and economy. Sustainable energy provides diversification in power supply, which increases energy security, lower the need for imported energy sources, and prevents the depletion of nations' natural energy resources. Compared to conventional fuels, sustainable energy emits lower, in some cases, net-zero, greenhouse gases that make a significant contribution to battling climate change. Furthermore, sustainable energy sources do not entail fuel costs or require long-distance transportation, providing better price stability than conventional fuels. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), sustainable/renewable energy demand will increase by 1% by the end of 2020 compared to the 2019 level.5 Moreover, despite delays in the supply chain and construction chain due to Covid-19, sustainable/renewable electricity generation will grow by 5% by which it will consist of 30% of global electricity generation. In sustainable/renewable-based electricity generation breakdown, hydropower accounts for 60%. Since it does not produce direct greenhouse gases, one might consider nuclear, which produces 10% of global electricity, as sustainable as well, so that the share of sustainable/renewable in global power generation reaches up to around 40%.6 Canada currently has substantial renewable energy resources to produce 17% of its primary energy.7 Furthermore, Canada has a unique and well-structured nuclear industry that produces around 15% of its electricity.8 Canada's sustainability picture looks promising in electricity generation, but the image is not the same for transportation, heating, and cooling. Despite having all these abundant nature-friendly energy sources and getting almost 60% of its electricity from sustainable/renewable sources, Canada is among the top 10 greenhouse gas (GHG) emitter countries.9 However, Canada is capable of achieving better than these. There are reasons to be hopeful in this regard. First, Canada is well aware of its responsibilities regarding GHG emissions reduction and already announcing new policies and new funds to support nature-friendly projects. Second, Canadian institutes already have enough experience regarding green energy projects. Figure 1 illustrates a potential sustainable energy pathway for Canada through the 3S + 2S = S approach where 3S represents source-system-service, 2S stands for storage, and lastly, S is for sustainability. Owing to its policymakers' awareness about climate change and the importance of sustainable solutions, and its well-structured institutes, Canada is committed to implementing such a green energy transition. In this study, Canadian sustainable energy studies from 1970 to 2020 are evaluated through a comprehensive literature search in the Elsevier's Scopus sources. The relevant data and information are collected and assessed on sustainable energy-related studies. Moreover, the most productive Canadian institutes that make the highest contribution to Canada's sustainable energy research activities are discussed, and their studies are presented with figures. The methodology used for this study and online search criteria implemented for data collection is described in the following section. Research efforts on sustainable energy in Canada are evaluated in this study. The outputs of such research efforts are collected and examined in five categories: articles, books, research projects, patents, and graduate dissertations. Institutes in Canada that conducted the highest number of research or provided funds for research studies in the corresponding research field are discussed. Figure 2 illustrates the keywords and limitations used for the online search. The data is collected in a manner where any potential field conflict in terms of attributing a single multidisciplinary publication more than once is avoided. The results are organized and illustrated in graphics, and the collected data are discussed in the following section. Collected data and information regarding sustainable energy-related studies of Canadian institutes over the last 50-year period are presented with graphs; the results are discussed in this section. The given data shows the number of sustainable energy-related studies for articles, books, research projects, patents, and graduate dissertations. Figure 3 presents the number of studies on sustainable energy in Canada over the corresponding period in all subject areas available in Scopus. Engineering (10 539), environmental science (10 383), and energy (9838) are the three top subject areas where the highest number of sustainable energy studies were carried out over the last five decades. Note that the articles, conference papers, and reviews cover around 92% of all sustainable energy-related studies affiliated with Canada. Over the last five decades, 33 896 sustainable energy-related articles were published. 2019 was the year where the highest number of studies conducted. Figure 4A presents the number of papers investigating sustainable energy. The corresponding figure shows that the publications in this regard began in the 1990s. This is understandable since the concept of sustainable development was first described in the 1987 book named Our Common Future written by the World Commission on Environment and Development,11 which shows that Canada was one of the top countries that started conducting sustainable energy research first. The impact of the current Covid-19 pandemic might be observed in the research numbers of 2020. Figure 4B shows the distribution of sustainable energy-related studies of Canada on its province based on the studies' affiliations. According to Figure 3B, Ontario was the most productive province of Canada in this regard. Figure 5 presents the number of publications affiliated to Canada considering books, book chapters, and editorials on sustainable energy. The corresponding figure shows that there were 2546 publications affiliated to Canada in this regard. Compared to the previous year 2011 (135), there was a big jump in Canada's sustainable energy-related book publications in 2012 (245). 2018 was the most productive year in terms of published number of sustainable energy-related books with a value of 298. Then, the publication number almost halved in 2019. The information on data provided by Library and Archives Canada shows that 542 graduate dissertations on sustainable energy affiliated to Canada from 1970 to 2020. Figure 6 presents the breakdown of the theses related to sustainable energy according to data entry years to the corresponding database. It is important to note that the number of graduate dissertation presented in Figure 6 is based on data collected from the archive as of September 2020. It should be noted that the given number would change with new data entry to the database. Recent records indicate that the most productive year was 2013, with the completed graduate theses number of 69. Another essential search parameter of the current study is the number of sustainable energy-related patents affiliated to Canada from 1970 to 2020. For this evalu

• openalex https://doi.org/10.1002/er.6177first seen 2026-08-02 18:17:06