150 acres of dreams dashed: Buyer now sought for super-collider site

Houston Chronicle ^ | March 15, 2003 | Jim Henderson

[animoveritas]

Do you know if Oak Ridge is still running the HFIR? My understanding is that the combination of SNS pulsed source and the HFIR steady state were the comprehensive plan.

Concur with you political assessment, anything that has the word "nuclear" associated with it never sees the light of day under left wing ignorant fear mongers. I think under President Bush, Gen IV research is finally progressing...albeit 8 years late.

[chimera]

The HFIR is still running but I think their power was derated (at least it was for awhile there). But that is primarily an isotope-producer. Making californium, among other things, has been their breadwinner. The have diffractometers on some of their beam lines but they really aren't set up to do serious scattering work, where you need long runs and decent-sized instrument halls. The ANS was designed to have those. The SPS will but the source is bunged up (if you want steady-state, that is).

There was an article in Drudge today about the Chinese taking the lead on a pebble-bed Gen IV system. We're being left behind (again). But, people don't care about basic science and technology development in this country. If it doesn't generate a 25% increase in revenue on the quarterly bottom line or buy some CEO a $20 million bonus or earn shareholders an extra penny or two in dividends that year, they tell it to take a hike. It is my guess that in 20 years' time all the important neutron scattering work (and with it the basic and applied materials research that comes directly from it) will be done in Europe and Asia.

[freepatriot32]

gee the goverment got involved in something and totally screwed it up 6 ways from sunday and pissed away billions of dollars doing it with nothing to show for it but a hole in the ground that is so typical its barely newsworthy. vote straight libertarian every election people www.lp.org

[SunkenCiv]

Note: this topic is from March 15, 2003.

[brytlea]

We moved to DeSoto (town just north of Waxahatchie) shortly before it was canceled. The high school was amazing, since many of the kids were the children of physicists from the collider project. When they canceled it, the town really hurt. It was sad. It was a terribly stupid waste of money, and it was simple politics that killed it.

[Las Vegas Dave]

FYI: ItsJeff’s last post was February, ‘07.

[SunkenCiv]

I put a note about the age of the topic itself. :’)

[brytlea]

LOL
When I first got the ping, I was reading the first posts and never even looked at the date! Oh well.... ;)

[brytlea]

Well, I should have gone to the ping first!

[Las Vegas Dave]

I put a note about the age of the topic itself. :’)

I saw that, what I was saying is itsjeff has been AWOL from FR since Feb 2007, which was his last posting that I saw.
I know, freepers come and go. I just hope for all (except trolls) that it's not permanent.

[Kozak]

Clinton Library?

That only needs to be 4 inches long....

[SunkenCiv]

I read some of his posts, and, well...

[SunkenCiv]

:’)