This past week BSC Fusion was well-represented by Adriana Ghiozzi and Tomás Bensadon at the first-ever edition of the European Physical Society (EPS) Forum held in Paris, France. The event sought to promote collaboration and career development among young researchers, and stimulate economic recovery in technical sectors following the Covid-19 pandemic. The Forum featured a two-day lineup of plenary talks, panel discussions and poster sessions relevant to each of the EPS divisions and groups.
About one year ago, we wrote a post announcing that a collaborative EU-Japan HPC project led by the BSC Fusion Group’s researcher Julio Gutiérrez was generously funded in a competitive call coordinated within the framework of the Broader Approach (BA) Agreement.
This year, we are again glad to announce that our new project for the year 2022, titled Multi-Scale Atomistic Tungsten (MSAW), has been awarded 267K node-h (~10,688,000 core-h) on the Japan Fusion Reactor Simulator (JFRS-1), located at the Computational Simulation Centre of the International Fusion Energy Research Centre (IFERC-CSC) in Rokkasho (Aomori, Japan). The complete list of funded projects can be accessed here.
Last February, a press release was issued communicating that a team of European scientists from many sites and laboratories working together at the JET fusion reactor in Culham, UK, were able to produce a stable plasma with an energy output of 59MJ, the largest ever achieved at a fusion reactor and a historic deed in the road towards energy production through fusion plasmas.
To celebrate this memorable achievement, the Spanish Centre for Energetic, Environmental and Technological Research (CIEMAT) released a series of videos highlighting the role of CIEMAT and, in general, Spanish research, in the path to this accomplishment at JET.
Last Tuesday 3rd of May, our group attended the Meeting Climate Change Targets: The Role of Nuclear Energy webinar organized by the Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA). The main scope of the event was devoted to explore the role of nuclear technologies and their applications toward achieving the globally recognized goal of Net Zero. While our research is focused on developing nuclear fusion as a new source of electricity for the second half of this century, the webinar provided us with an excellent opportunity to learn about the current status of nuclear energy in the present energy policy context as well as to understand the potential role that nuclear energy could have in emission reduction.
The webinar was divided into three parts. It started with brief talks from keynote speakers, followed by a main webinar presentation by Head of the Division of Nuclear Technology Development and Economics at NEA Diane Cameron about the upcoming NEA report, and ended up with a Q&A session.
On the 23rd of April is “la Diada de Sant Jordi”, the Saint George’s Day. This is a very deep-rooted tradition in Catalonia and one of its most special days. While in the past the tradition consisted of men giving women a red rose and women giving men a book, nowadays anybody can give a book or a rose or both to anybody as they wish.
Although is not a public holiday, all throughout the day, Catalan cities and villages are filled with stalls selling books and roses as well as people walking in search of a special book or rose to give away. It is such a very fun and festive ambiance that it is difficult to explain in words; it is best to come here to experience it for yourself!
The 48th European Physical Society (EPS) Conference on Plasma Physics will be held in the online format from June 27 to July 1, 2022. This annual conference covers the wide field of plasma physics including magnetic confinement fusion, beam plasma and inertial fusion, low temperature plasmas, and basic, space and astrophysical plasmas. The program can be found on the conference website and the registrations are now open here. Among others, the conference will be a great opportunity to listen to the lectures given by the Hannes Alfvén prize recipients as well as by the Innovation prize awardees.