This was America's flagship project for the next decade

Mar 23, 2012 16:03 GMT  ·  By
The Long-Baseline Neutrino Experimen was supposed to be built in a mine in South Dakota
   The Long-Baseline Neutrino Experimen was supposed to be built in a mine in South Dakota

The next flagship particle physics project the United States was supposed to conduct has just been canceled. The Long-Baseline Neutrino Experiment (LBNE), which was supposed to the built at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) in Batavia, Illinois, is no longer affordable.

Billed at around $1.5 billion, this was supposed to the main project to be conducted at the sole particle physics laboratory in the US. However, the US Department of Energy (DOE) decided that the investment was not worth it, Science Insider reports.

The Long-Baseline Neutrino Experiment was supposed to be built in the abandoned Homestake gold mine in South Dakota, but DOE Office of Science director, William Brinkman, called on physicists to find a cheaper alternative to conduct the same type of science.

“We do not see that we can afford a project as large as that proposed as LBNE,” Brinkman explained.