The countries behind the €1.4 billion European Spallation Source (ESS) have finally picked a site to build it: Lund, Sweden.
"The decision on where ESS should be built has been eagerly awaited by the thousands of European scientists whose research depends so crucially upon neutrons," said Peter Allenspach, Chairman of search commmittee.
"Three extremely good candidates, Sweden, Spain and Hungary, proposed excellent sites to host the ESS. Each of their campaigns strongly emphasised both the strategic importance of ESS for European science, and the urgency to build ESS in light of the new American and Japanese spallation neutron sources."
"Unfortunately, it has always been realised that only one of the three candidate sites could ultimately host ESS. In this respect European Research ministers recommended that the ESS site should be in Lund in Sweden. Spain has already graciously pledged to exploit the expertise and momentum it has gained in the last three years by signing an agreement to help ESS-Scandinavia deliver the ESS that Europe needs," said Allenspach.
"We hope that Hungary will similarly follow this initiative and actively bring its expertise to the ESS table. In this way there is potential for all three serious site contenders to benefit from their dedication and commitment over the last few years."
Related Physics Today links
Germany Reviews Big Physics Projects, Triggers Furor over Spallation Source (November 2002)
European Spallation Source: Dead or Alive? (April 2003)
Scattered countries revive hope for European Spallation Source (June 2008)
All I can say is good for the E.U. This neutron spallation source will be a good additional facility to study atomic and molecular bulk materials at the elemental and molecular level.
As a U.S. citizen, I feel a little disappointment that the U.S. will not host this facility, but heck, at least we have the National Ignition Facility, will build the Rare Isotope Collider, and currently have the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider, and perhaps we will host the TeV range electron LINAC.
However I am pleased that the EU is taking the initiative and investing so much money in large scale physics labs which also includes the Large Hadron Collider.