Richard Harris

Credit Doby Photography / NPR

Award-winning journalist Richard Harris reports on science issues for NPR's newsmagazines Morning Edition, All Things Considered, and Weekend Edition.

Harris, who joined NPR in 1986, has traveled to the ends of the earth for NPR. His reports have originated from Timbuktu, the South Pole, the Galapagos Islands, Beijing during the SARS epidemic, the center of Greenland, the Amazon rain forest and the foot of Mt. Kilimanjaro (for a story about tuberculosis).

In 2010, Harris' reporting uncovered that the blown-out BP oil well in the Gulf of Mexico was spewing out far more oil than asserted in the official estimates. He covered the United Nations climate negotiations, starting with the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, followed by Kyoto in 1997 and Copenhagen in 2009. Harris was a major contributor to NPR's award-winning 2007-2008 "Climate Connections" series.

Over the course of his career, Harris has been the recipient of many of the journalism and science industries' most prestigious awards. The University of California at Santa Cruz awarded Harris the 2010-11 Alumni Achievement Award – the school's highest honor. In 2002, Harris was elected an honorary member of Sigma Xi, the scientific research society. Harris shared a 1995 Peabody Award for investigative reporting on NPR about the tobacco industry.

As part of the team that collaborated on NPR's 1989 series "AIDS in Black America," Harris was awarded a Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Silver Baton, a first place award from the National Association of Black Journalists and an Ohio State Award. In 1988, Harris won the American Association for the Advancement of Science Journalism Award for his report, "Anti-Noise: Can Technology Turn Noise into Quiet?" which explored a revolutionary technology that uses computer-generated noise to cancel out, not just mask, unwanted noise.

Before joining NPR, Harris was a science writer for the San Francisco Examiner. From 1981 to 1983, Harris was a staff writer at The Tri-Valley Herald in Livermore, California, covering science, technology, and health issues. Under the auspices of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Harris spent the summer of 1980 as a Mass Media Science Fellow reporting on science issues for The Washington Star, in Washington, D.C.

Harris is co-founder of the Washington, D.C., Area Science Writers Association, as well as past president of the National Association of Science Writers.

A California native, Harris was valedictorian of his college graduating class at the University of California at Santa Cruz in 1980. He earned a bachelor's degree in biology, with highest honors.

'Power For The Planet'? Company Bets Big On Fusion

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Credit Brett Beadle for NPR

A section of the fusion machine being tested at General Fusion's facility outside of Vancouver, British Columbia. General Fusion is hoping to implement a long-shot strategy that could produce fusion energy in the next few years.

Credit Brett Beadle for NPR

Michel Laberge, president and chief technology officer of General Fusion, says the fusion machine he is developing "is an insanely ambitious project."

Credit Brett Beadle for NPR

Banks of capacitors are a key part of General Fusion's machine. The capacitors, which charge up and release bursts of electricity, will be used to heat gases to 1 million degrees Celsius in preparation for a fusion reaction.

Credit Brett Beadle for NPR

General Fusion is relying heavily on funding from venture capital firms, which are generally accustomed to quick turnarounds. This project is pioneering the idea that such firms can have the patience to invest in longer-term projects.

By Richard Harris

The world would be a very different place if we could bottle up a bit of the sun here on Earth and tap that abundant and clean energy supply. Governments have spent many billions of dollars to develop that energy source, fusion energy, but it's still a distant dream. Now a few upstart companies are trying to do it on the cheap. And the ideas are credible enough to attract serious private investment.

2:15 am

Thu October 27, 2011

The Global Coal Trade's Complex Calculation

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Credit Frederic J. Brown / AFP/Getty Images

To feed China's insatiable demand for coal, U.S. companies are trying to sell and ship the lucrative commodity to the Asian market from new West Coast ports. Above, the cooling towers of a coal-fired power plant are seen on the outskirts of Beijing.

Credit Robert Nickelsberg / Getty Images

A 133-car coal train is loaded at the Buckskin Coal Mine in Gillete, Wyo. Each car carries 120 tons of coal. New terminals in Washington state could eventually be destinations for coal, which is currently used for power in St. Louis, Detroit, Chicago and the eastern U.S.

By Richard Harris

Listen

This is the second of two reports on plans to export U.S. coal to China.

Coal producers in Wyoming and Montana are hoping new export terminals will be built in Washington state so they can ramp up their sales to China. Activists are trying to stop those ports, in part because they're concerned about global warming. But a thriving export market could also drive up the price of coal here in the United States, and that has climate implications as well.

1:52 am

Wed October 26, 2011

In Northwest Town, A Local Fight Against Global Coal

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Credit Brett Beadle for NPR

Bellingham, Wash., a progressive college town of 81,000, could soon be home to a new coal terminal. Developers want to ship the lucrative commodity to China, but some locals are worried about the potential environmental impacts.

Credit Brett Beadle for NPR

Bellingham Mayor Dan Pike is opposed to the coal terminal despite the jobs and development it would bring. "We've built a reputation over the past few decades as a place that values sustainability," Pike says, "and there are few things that are as anti-sustainability as coal is."

Credit Brett Beadle for NPR

Opponents of the Bellingham coal terminal are also worried about the inevitable increase in train traffic through town — the terminal could bring in a train almost hourly.

Credit Brett Beadle for NPR

Plans call for building the new terminal in an old industrial area called Cherry Point, just north of the downtown area. Mayor Pike says he wants his city to move beyond its industrial past.

Credit Brett Beadle for NPR

Some supporters of the proposed terminal say that even if local opponents do block the project, that wouldn't necessarily stop the coal train traffic. The rails through Bellingham continue on to the coal terminal in British Columbia.

Credit Brett Beadle for NPR

Credit Westshore Terminal

About 35 miles north from Bellingham, just across the border in Vancouver, B.C., trains carrying coal rumble into the Westshore Terminal around the clock. The coal comes primarily from Canada, but increasingly the trains are delivering coal mined in Wyoming and Montana.

Credit Brett Beadle for NPR

Bellingham Mayor Dan Pike stands in front of a passing coal train at one of the major parks in downtown Bellingham. The proposed coal port is a big issue politically, and Pike is fully opposed to the port development.

Credit Brett Beadle for NPR

Steve McMinn and Julie Trimingham, with their son. Trimingham's family has lived in Bellingham for generations, and she now finds herself stepping up as a community activist, opposing the proposed coal-export terminal.

By Richard Harris

Originally published on Wed May 23, 2012 9:18 am

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This is the first of two reports on plans to export U.S. coal to China.

Plans are afoot to build giant new coal terminals on the West Coast to ship this lucrative commodity to China. But activists want to stop this, in part because coal produces huge amounts of carbon dioxide when it's burned. Federal climate policy is silent on this potentially large source of emissions, so the debate is happening at the local level.

10:01 pm

Thu October 20, 2011

'Living Fossils' Just A Branch On Cycad Family Tree

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Credit Maggie Starbard / NPR

A giant dioon, seen at the United States Botanic Garden, is part of the cycad family and can be found growing in Mexico and Central America.

Credit Maggie Starbard / NPR

A cycad stands at the United States Botanic Garden in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 19. The 300 "modern" cycad species burst onto the scene about 12 million years ago, though the lineage of cycads extends back 300 million years.

Credit Maggie Starbard / NPR

Sarah Mathews, a botanist at Harvard University, says a changing climate on the planet about 12 million years ago led to a burst of new plant species, including cacti and agave.

Credit Maggie Starbard / NPR

A natal grass cycad grows in the greenhouse at the United States Botanic Garden.

By Richard Harris

Originally published on Fri October 21, 2011 6:46 am

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Although dinosaurs died out 65 million years ago, there are still thought to be a few species left over from those days. Plants called cycads are among these rare "living fossils" — they have remained pretty much unchanged for more than 300 million years, but a study in Science magazine suggests that glamorous title may not be deserved.

There's no time machine in Washington, D.C., but Harvard botanist Sarah Mathews leads me to what's arguably the next best thing — a room made of glass in the U.S. Botanic Garden, just downhill from the U.S. Capitol.

1:13 pm

Wed October 5, 2011

Nobel-Winning Chemist Fought Hard For Acceptance

Credit H. Mark Helfer / NIST

Daniel Schectman, left, discusses the quasicrystal's structure with collaborators in 1985, just months after shaking the foundations of materials science. Schectman was awarded the 2011 Nobel Prize for chemistry.

By Richard Harris

If you or your mate shaved this morning with one of those thin-foil electric shavers, that face probably brushed up against a strange form of matter called a quasicrystal. Norelco is unlikely to get a Nobel Prize for that invention, but the man who discovered quasicrystals, Daniel Shechtman, will get this year's Nobel Prize in chemistry. And it didn't come easy.

Crystals, like diamonds and quartz, hold their sparkly allure because of the way the atoms inside those rocks line up so neatly.

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1:10 pm

Wed November 9, 2011