Monday, January 21, 2008

Federal Cuts May Doom Fermilab's Prized Project

To celebrate today being the most depressing day of the year, here are more gloomy outlook on the Fermilab getting the ILC built on its grounds.

But now, collider project planners worry that any delay in research and development funding could have scientists and designers abandoning Fermilab for labs in countries and facilities that seem more supportive of high-energy physics exploration, such as Japan, the European Union's CERN laboratory in Switzerland or China.
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"It (the ITER cut) calls into question the reliability of the United States as an international partner in big science projects," said Judy Jackson, Fermilab's communications director. "It makes it harder to site the ILC in the United States."


The news article actually focuses on Fermilab's effort to explain to its neighbors on the ILC project and to get them involved in the decision making process if the ILC gets built at Fermilab. They are certainly trying to avoid the mistake they made when they competed for the ill-fated SSC.

At the bottom of the article is a very good list of facts on how the ILC could possibly affects the surrounding neighborhood and what issues are involved in building such a facility as far as the landscape is concerned.

But then again, all of this could be moot.....

Zz.

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