Europe is now suffering from an energy crisis. Heating and electricity costs on the continent have skyrocketed in the aftermath of Ukraine’s invasion, which resulted in the Russian government choking gas supplies.

CERN’s particle physics laboratory in the heart of Europe, along the French-Swiss border, faces the same predicament. CERN officials are reportedly planning to limit or even shut down the recently restarted Large Hadron Collider (LHC) this month.

A pause in the world’s largest and most expensive collider, the LHC, would not be unusual for particle accelerator research. However, if it has to hibernate for a long period of time, complications can occur.

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Some say CERN uses as much electricity as a small city, but there’s some truth to this. By the group’s own admission, the facility consumes about one-third as much electricity in a year as nearby Geneva, Switzerland. The exact figure varies from month to month and year to year, but the lab’s particle accelerator could account for about 90% of his CERN electricity bill.

It’s all too easy for ground-based observers to wonder why so much energy is being put into mysterious physics experiments involving elementary particles, plasma, and dark matter. “Given the current situation and as part of its social responsibility, CERN plans to reduce its energy consumption this winter,” group spokesperson Myris Nicollet wrote in his statement to the press. .

That said, CERN’s energy strategy is already somewhat sustainable, so CERN doesn’t have the same utility concerns as the average European. This facility receives power from the French power grid. This power grid derives more than two-thirds of its energy from nuclear fission. This is the highest number of any country in the world. This will not only significantly reduce the LHC’s carbon footprint, but also significantly reduce its dependence on imported fossil fuels.

But the French grid has another quirk. Unlike much of Europe, which relies on gas for home heating, French homes often use electric heaters. As a result, local electricity bills can be twice as high as his during the cold months. Currently, 32 of the country’s 56 reactors are shut down for maintenance or repair.French government plan Strengthen the grid against the energy crisis by turning most of them back on by winter.

[Related: Can Europe swap Russian energy with nuclear power?]

But if that doesn’t happen, CERN could be facing a power shortage. Even if the research giant expands its budget to pay for electricity, it may not be enough, depending on what happens to French reactors. “This fall, it’s not about price, it’s about availability,” said Serge Claudet, chairman of CERN’s energy management committee. chemistry.

However, hibernation is not unusual for the LHC. In the past, CERN shut down its particle accelerator for maintenance over the winter. This year is no exception. Collider stewards said from November he plans to suspend Collider until March. If the European energy crisis continues into 2023, the LHC moratorium could last into the warmer months, if not longer.

According to a facility spokesperson, CERN management is considering options. The French government may order the LHC not to operate during peak power demand, such as in the morning or evening. Alternatively, in order to keep its flagship product running, CERN may seek to shut down some of the smaller accelerators that share the site.

But not all particle physicists are in favor of favoring the energy of a single machine. He is one of the ATLAS collaborators in the LHC experiments.

The LHC, on the other hand, has much to lose by fading indefinitely. If it had to be powered off for more than a year, the collider’s equipment, such as the detectors used to monitor collisions on a very small scale, could start to degrade. That’s why no one blindly advertises a five-year wait,” says Lohwasser. Also, keeping the LHC dormant requires a significant amount of energy.

Even without CERN’s accelerators running, particle physicists around the world sifting through data have a lot to work on. Experiments in the field yield a ton of results, including positions, velocities, and countless mysterious substances from thousands of collisions. Experts can still find hidden subatomic artifacts in measurements ten years after the measurements were recorded. The flow of research in physics is unlikely to stop because of the energy crisis.

For now, the decision to power the LHC’s third experiment is still up in the air. This week, CERN officials will present a plan to the agency’s governing authorities on how to proceed. The solution will be presented to the French and Swiss governments for consultation. A final decision will then be made public.

“So far, I’m not necessarily overly concerned. [physicists] about these plans,” says Lohwasser. If CERN had to turn its back on larger concerns, much of the scientific community would accept it.