Environment

UCSD Scientists Want To Bottle Nuclear Fusion

By Ed Joyce / Reporter

Published September 14, 2009 at 12:00 PM PDT

This story was published more than 14 years ago.

Russ Doerner, a research scientist in the UCSD Jacobs School of Enginerering's Mechanical and Aerospace Department, is using a $7 million grant to study how fusion can become an effective green energy source.

Goal is to Create Renewable Energy

UCSD Scientists Want To Bottle Nuclear Fusion

Fusion is best known for powering the sun and stars. But UC San Diego researchers are studying ways to transform the process of nuclear fusion into renewable energy on Earth.

A team of researchers from UC San Diego, MIT and UC Berkeley have received a $7 million research grant from the U.S. Department of Energy.

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The researchers will use the five-year grant to study ways to replicate the sun on Earth and harness its energy.

UCSD scientist Russ Doerner hopes the research will lead to development of a containment vessel that could withstand the heat of the sun.

"How do you make a wall that can survive in close proximity to something that's on the order of the temperature of the sun?" Doerner asks. "So the walls are trying to melt and basically disintegrate. And we're trying to study ways to prevent that from happening."

He says a nuclear fusion power plant would not produce the same type of radioactive waste as current fission-powered nuclear plants do.

Doerner also says a nuclear fusion power plant would not generate any greenhouse gas emissions.

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Ed Joyce was the environment reporter and afternoon news anchor for KPBS-FM. Before joining KPBS, he worked as an editor/columnist with Copley News Service in San Diego. Ed has an extensive background in newspaper, radio, web and TV journalism. After graduating with a B.A. in Communications from the University of Washington in Seattle, Ed began a career in broadcast journalism. His work has included stints in public broadcasting, commercial broadcasting and education -- working as an affiliate professor of communication and reporter at the University of Idaho and Washington State University in Pullman, Wash. During the past 20 years he has worked in radio, TV and print as a news reporter, anchor, writer, editor and producer. Along the way he has won numerous awards for general news reporting, newswriting, feature and issue reporting and breaking news reporting from The Associated Press, The Society of Professional Journalists, San Diego Press Club and other organizations. During the mid-1990s, while working for Oregon Public Broadcasting, he was a frequent contributor to National Public Radio, including a feature report on the memorial service for 14 U.S. Forest Service "hotshots" who died fighting a wildfire in Colorado (the crew was based in a central Oregon town). He’s also filed reports with Marketplace, KQED’s California Report and Climate Watch and with national and regional networks throughout the United States. At KPBS, Ed continues his contributions to National Public Radio and other national and regional news organizations. He has won awards from the Society of Professional Journalists and San Diego Press Club for his environmental reporting at KPBS-FM-TV and for producing and anchoring radio newscasts. In 2007 he was selected a National Press Foundation fellow for Understanding Violent Weather II program. The seminars were held at the National Weather Center in Norman, Okla. In 2008 he spoke at a UC San Diego conference on U.S. National Security as part of the school’s Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation. Ed led a discussion with the 18 foreign government officials and academics about the political debate over climate change. In 2010, Ed was elected to a three-year term on the board of the San Diego Press Club.

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