TALK about a whopping electricity bill. CERN officials have announced that the Large Hadron Collider will now also run through December to February, adding about $10 million to its cost.
After spending a week in Chamonix, France, discussing the switch-on, CERN officials announced on Monday that they aim to start up the machine by the end of September 2009. The first proton collisions would occur four or five weeks later, continuing through the winter.
While the cost of electricity between December and February is three times as much as it is in June, the idea of turning the machine off just as it gets going is clearly unattractive. “We built this machine to operate it,” says Steve Myers, CERN’s director of accelerators and technology. “If you buy a Rolls-Royce, you can afford to put the petrol in.”
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