Broad scope of physics at Bienal de Física 2017

Santiago de Compostela.

The 36th Bienal de la Real Sociedad Española de Física was held in Santiago de Compostela, Spain, on the 17th-21st of July. The charming city was a perfect choice to host the Spanish physical community. Its people, gastronomy and old streets are ideal to let your imagination fly after some really interesting talks.

The conference gives an idea of the research carried out in Spain. The scope of research carried out is very broad and many fields were covered, from our research topic Plasma Physics to Nuclear physics, Thermodynamics, Energy and Sustainability, Molecular Physics, Astrophysics etc. Our PhD student Dani Gallart attended the conference and contributed with a paper entitled “Heating modelling and extrapolation of hybrid plasmas at JET”.

The topic that was given special emphasis in this year’s conference was the energy crisis. It was introduced as a plenary talk was given by Prof. Josef Ongena from the Laboratory for Plasma Physics – LPP-ERM/KMS (Brussels, Belgium). He gave an overview of the potential of available energy sources including renewable ones and their role in the future energy mix. He also talked about the particular example of Germany in this context. Following the decision to dismantle most of its nuclear power plants, Germany is nowadays struggling to meet its energy demand, which has forced it to buy electricity at a high price from the neighboring countries. In the end of the talk one was left with the feeling that a powerful energy source which is also safe and clear is still missing.

Our research is directed towards fusion which could one day provide such an alternative new energy source.

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