14 DAY TRIAL // Following the glitches in September, known as "quench" happening during the "S34 Incident," which affected sectors 3-4 of the Large Hadron Collider's ring, the repairs were estimated to cost about 35 million Swiss francs ($29 million), the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) announced yesterday. According to CERN spokesman James Gillies, the actual repairs would make up for 15 million Swiss francs, while the spare parts would add another 10-20 million Swiss francs to the total cost.
In late November, during the 84th Plenary Meeting of the European Committee for Future Accelerators, CERN Director-General Robert Aymar presented images of the "S34 Incident" to the public, for the first time. Additionally, there were some hints to the fact that there was a possibility that the next year would not bring any particle collision experiments, albeit the latest official reports linked the date of the first such events to June 2009 at the earliest.
So far, the biggest and most intricate device ever developed, the LHC, required 10 billion Swiss francs ($8 billion) to be built, which came from the 20 European countries that were members of CERN, as well as from Russia and the US. "We will not be going to our member states asking for more money, we will deal with it within the current CERN budget," shared Gillies, as quoted by Reuters. However, in the light of the last mishap, this massive investment has to be protected in some way.
This is why a device that would prevent such "quenches" from happening again in the future has to be taken into account. And indeed, it has been, as the official report indicates that an "early warning system" is currently considered, one that would be developed in such a fashion that would make it able to depict small electrical shorts. This should enable the new system to shut down the giant machine before any damage is produced.