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Sept. 7, 2022
CERN is drafting plans to idle its particle accelerators, including the Large Hadron Collider, if France runs short of electricity
Image above: The Large Hadron Collider, the world’s largest particle accelerator, consumes a third as much power as the nearby city of Geneva when it is at peak operation. Photo Credits: Pierre Albouy/REUTERS.
Europe’s energy crisis is threatening to slow experiments into the fundamental forces of nature.
The European Organization for Nuclear Research, or CERN, is drafting plans to shut down some of its particle accelerators at periods of peak demand, said Serge Claudet, chair of the center’s energy management panel. CERN is also considering how it could idle the Large Hadron Collider, the world’s largest accelerator, if necessary, Mr. Claudet said.
“Our concern is really grid stability, because we do all we can to prevent a blackout in our region,” Mr. Claudet said.
The preparations show the far-reaching impact of Moscow’s move to transform Europe’s dependence on Russian energy supplies into a weapon of economic war. Emergency measures are now on the table after Russian energy giant Gazprom PJSC said Friday it would indefinitely stop natural gas deliveries through the Nord Stream gas pipeline, Russia’s main artery for delivering the fuel to Europe, pushing the continent closer to gas rationing as winter approaches.
Sweden and Finland on Friday said they would offer funding support to regional electricity producers, saying that Gazprom’s move threatened the region’s power market and its broader financial stability. The European Union is preparing plans to restructure the market to ease some of the pain.
Image above: Russia indefinitely suspended natural gas flows to Europe via the Nord Stream pipeline on Friday, pushing the bloc closer to gas rationing as winter approaches. Photo Credits: HANNIBAL HANSCHKE/REUTERS.
Big energy consumers across the continent are making plans to cut their consumption during winter, when gas and electricity peaks for heating. Some European factories, from steel furnaces to fertilizer makers, are shutting down as the soaring price of electricity and gas has left them unable to compete in the global market.
CERN sits on a sprawling complex that straddles the French-Swiss border and is one of France’s largest electricity consumers. At peak operation, it consumes nearly 200 megawatts of power, a third as much as the nearby city of Geneva.
The most famous result of the Large Hadron Collider, or LHC, was the confirmation in 2012 of the existence of the Higgs boson, a particle that gives mass to all other particles. Now the LHC is probing the properties of the Higgs and looking for particles that could constitute dark matter, the substance that scientists theorize pervades the universe but has so far gone undetected. The collider accelerates protons and other particles in opposite directions around a 17-mile ring, slamming them together at close to the speed of light to examine short-lived particles that appear in the aftermath of the collisions.
CERN’s aim is to keep the LHC operating and to avoid a sudden shutdown that could disrupt the $4.4 billion machine, Mr. Claudet said. The LHC is one of eight accelerators in the complex; there are also two particle decelerators at CERN that allow scientists to study antimatter.
CERN is in discussions with its electricity supplier, state-controlled French power giant EDF SA, to receive a day’s warning that the center would need to consume less electricity, Mr. Claudet said. CERN would give priority to shutting down other accelerators besides the LHC, lowering the center’s electricity consumption by as much as 25%.
In July, the center ramped up the LHC to slam particles together at the highest energy ever reached in a particle accelerator. That step came shortly after Moscow began to reduce the flow of gas through the Nord Stream pipeline following its invasion of Ukraine and the West’s decision to impose sanctions on Moscow. The energy crisis was compounded by the outages at France’s fleet of nuclear reactors, a major source of electricity for the continent.
Shutting down the LHC would save another 25%, with a catch: The collider relies on superconducting magnets cooled to -456 degrees Fahrenheit to bend the particle beam, requiring a significant amount of power even when the beam is turned off. Allowing the magnets to warm up could set back experiments at the LHC for weeks.
European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN): https://home.cern/
Images (mentioned), Text, Credits: The Wall Street Journal/By Matthew Dalton.
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