Research Innovation
The making of a made-in-Canada energy future
May 25, 2026
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Silicon carbide is proposed as a cladding material for next-generation nuclear fuel pellets. This all-atom silicon carbide was created by student Richard Meng using machine-learning interatomic potential in the Béland Lab.
Building Canada’s energy future at home is often framed around two priorities: securing sovereignty and enabling innovation. In nuclear energy, those priorities play out over decades. Reactors are designed, built, and maintained across long timelines, and the expertise behind them must be built to match. This philosophy is a driving motivation behind Queen’s researcher Laurent Karim Béland’s dual solution approach, which is aimed at strengthening Canada’s nuclear sector by advancing both leading research and the new generation of engineers and scientists to implement it.
“A culture of building our own tools is also a culture of deeper technical understanding,” he says.
Prof. Béland (Mechanical and Materials Engineering) is an expert in computational materials science specializing in nuclear power applications. His focus on the next generation, both in terms of people and technology, aligns with a critical moment for Canada as the country looks to triple its nuclear capacity by 2050. With close to $2 million in support from recently announced federal grants, Prof. Béland’s work aims to bring us that much closer to a more sustainable energy future.
Laurent Karim Béland, (Associate Professor) Mechanical and Materials Engineering.
Building Canadian expertise in nuclear software
The first grant provides $1.65 million over six years from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council’s (NSERC) CREATE program to establish the Canadian Hub for Excellence in Multiscale Nuclear Software, or CHEMNUS. The initiative will train students and young researchers in scientific software skills that support Canada’s nuclear sector across academia, industry, and government.
“Nuclear energy is part of Canada’s critical energy infrastructure,” says Prof. Béland. “It is increasingly important that we have the capacity to understand, adapt, and improve the tools that support it. That includes equipping student and research trainees to become bridges between communities when they move into industry or government so they can understand both the academic and applied languages that make future collaborations in support of the sector much more effective.”
CHEMNUS aims to train 77 students and early-career researchers across six universities in areas including scientific software engineering, advanced computing, and multiscale nuclear modelling. Participants will learn to develop software that simulates nuclear systems across scales, from atomic interactions to full reactor safety models. According to Prof. Béland, the impact this cohort of nuclear engineers and scientists can have on the industry’s ecosystem is critical, as they will be highly software-literate and comfortable working across disciplines.
The national training program also reflects growing student interest in careers connected to climate solutions and clean energy technologies.
“Nuclear energy, materials science, and advanced computing all have important roles to play in expanding the range of clean-energy options available to society,” says Prof. Béland. “For students, this is an exciting area because the problems are technically deep, socially important, and highly interdisciplinary. You can contribute to climate solutions while working on very challenging science and engineering.”
The Reactor Materials Testing Laboratory (RMTL) at Queen's is a state-of-the-art facility featuring a proton and helium accelerator that introduces radiation damage and transmutation products into materials to mimic the changes to materials that occur in a nuclear reactor.
Advancing small modular reactor safety research
Alongside CHEMNUS, Prof. Béland also received $240,000 through the NSERC-Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) initiative. This funding will support the development of next-generation computer models and laboratory techniques to better predict how materials used in future SMRs will perform under extreme conditions, with a focus on safety and performance.
His approach combines machine learning, quantum mechanics, and advanced computer simulations with laboratory experiments at Queen’s Reactor Materials Testing Laboratory to recreate radiation damage under reactor-like conditions.
“Many reactors in Ontario are now several decades old and that means some components are being exposed to reactor environments for longer than the time scales where we have direct empirical data,” says Prof. Béland. “A similar issue applies to new small modular reactors which cannot rely on past operating experience. Our combined approach gives us a way to connect fundamental physics to practical questions about safety, performance, and lifetime.”
The experiments will mimic conditions inside a reactor using particle beams to recreate radiation damage. Combined with advanced computer simulations that assess radiation at the atomic level, this research will help predict long-term changes in materials, including weakening due to tiny bubbles of gas and changes in chemistry that make metals more vulnerable to corrosion.
Supporting Canada’s clean energy future
For Prof. Béland, the long-term goal of both projects is to help create a stronger and more self-sustaining Canadian nuclear research ecosystem. This includes ensuring students, researchers, industry, and government having the expertise and tools needed to keep advancements at the forefront.
“Science and technology alone will not solve the climate crisis,” he says. “The final decisions are political, economic, and social. What researchers can do is broaden the set of viable options. We can make technologies safer, cleaner, more efficient, and more reliable. That is a meaningful contribution.”
To learn more about Prof. Béland’s research, visit the Béland Lab website.
A total of 21 initiatives were funded this year through CREATE, Collaborative Research and Training Experience, from NSERC. The fund works to develop talent pipelines through large-scale and highly networked initiatives focused on training students and young researchers with the skills and experience needed to thrive in Canada’s evolving workforce.
Queen’s is also co-lead on the Transform Scientific Computing Training to Advance Molecular Modeling in the Age of Artificial Intelligence CREATE initiative announced in this round. The program is led by Dr. Paul Ayers at McMaster University with Queen’s leads Farnaz Heidar-Zadeh (Chemistry), Catherine Stinson (Philosophy), Tucker Carrington (Chemistry), and Ryan Grant (Electrical and Computer Engineering). Additional CREATE-funded programs at Queen’s provide specialized training in medical informatics, cybersecurity, watershed sustainability, clean (bio)tech, photonics, and mobile robots.
