Members of the media may directly contact the following experts:
Liam Kieser (English only)
Adjunct Professor, Departments of Physics, Faculty of Science
[email protected]
Professor Kieser’s field of interest includes nuclear structure and reaction physics.
“The goal of obtaining abundant energy from the fusion of light elements has occupied scientists for almost 70 years. However, due to the strong electric repulsion of their positively charged nuclei, such elements have to be heated to extremely high temperatures (using a great deal of energy) for their nuclei to come close enough to each other to fuse. Such temperatures could not be contained by any materials we know, so two approaches are being researched: the confinement of the nuclei in a strong magnetic field (the Tokamak) or the compression and heating of a fuel pellet by high powered laser beams encircling the pellet (inertial Confinement).
“The breakthrough just announced by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) is that it is the first time that the energy put into the system to power the lasers is exceeded by the energy released by the fusion of the two heavy hydrogen isotopes (Deuterium and Tritium). With their 192 lasers using 2.1 MJ (0.58 kWH) of input power, they detected 2.5 MJ (0.69 kWH) from the fusion reaction – a net gain of 0.4 MJ (0.11 kWH). From these quantities of energy, it can be seen that considerable engineering work will be needed to develop a full scale power plant.”
Jean-Thomas Bernard (English and French)
Visiting Professor, Department of Economics, Faculty of Social Sciences. Faculty affiliate, Institute of the Environment.
[email protected]
Professor Bernard’s expertise includes:
- Economic aspects of energy use: price, costs and governmental policies.
- Analysis of energy markets by price and cost: electricity, oil, natural gas.
- Government policies relating to energy: taxation, programs and regulations.