On 27 June, group members Julio Gutiérrez and Mary Kate Chessey attended a Materials Square webinar (#118) titled, “Machine learning interatomic potentials for modelling radiation damage,” with invited speaker Professor Kai Nordlund of Computational Materials Physics from the University of Helsinki, Finland.
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.
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.
The European Physical Society (EPS) Plasma Physics Innovation Prize was established in 2008 to recognize and promote the wider benefits to society that arise from the applications of plasma physics research. The prize is awarded once a year and is managed by EPS Plasma Physics Division Board, where our group leader Prof. Mervi Mantsinen is a member since 2021.
This year, the EPS Plasma Physics Innovation Prize has been awarded to Dr Ane Aanesland, Dr Dmytro Rafalskyi and Javier Martínez Martínez for the technological, industrial and societal applications of research in plasma physics through their pioneering development of iodine-fueled plasma-based electric propulsion systems for satellites.
Last year the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) hosted its annual Introduction to Fusion Energy and Plasma Physics Course online. Open access to recorded lectures makes this an excellent resource for undergraduates, recent graduates, and anyone new to fusion research. The course was developed as part of the Science Undergraduate Laboratory Internships (SULI) program funded by the US Department of Energy.