As noted here …
https://gizmodo.com/dune-cavern-neutrin ... 1851225330 … the US is building something called the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) to study (obviously) neutrinos. It’s a huge project. The entire complex covers an area of eight soccer fields and it’s nearly a mile deep. They had to dig out nearly 800,000 tons of rock to create the caverns in which the equipment will be placed. The detectors that are going into each cavern contain 17000 TONS of liquid argon and are the size of seven story buildings.
According to
https://www.science.org/content/article ... experiment , DUNE is expected to cost about $3 BILLION (twice the original estimate) by the time it’s (hopefully) in operation in 2029 (it’s been delayed years already). And it’s now considerably slimmed down from what was promised at half the cost. The price now only includes the first phase of the two that were planned and only two of the four planned argon modules. Plus the power of the proton beam will be reduced and the detector will be simpler. So after completing the first phase, probably without discovery anything earth shattering, the DOE is likely going to want to improve it … at a cost of more hundreds of millions of dollars.
And that’s the story of only one neutrino detector. The US also has a neutrino detector in Ash River, Minnesota called NovA (it cost about $267 million) and a detector in Antartica called IceCube ($300 million). There are plans to improve IceCube (to IceCube2) at a cost of another $350 million). And America isn’t the only one building big neutrino detectors.
DUNE is competing with a deep underground experiment under construction in Japan called Hyper-K. Its original estimated construction cost was $600 million, but now it’s at least $800 million. And Hyper-K may beat DUNE to the punch since Hyper-K is expected to start taking data in 2027 or 2028.
There’s also the Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO) experiment now under construction in China at a projected cost of over $300 million (2014 dollars, so probably twice that today). It too may start taking data before DUNE.
Plus, the Chinese are building a “next generation” underwater neutrino detector called TRIDENT in the South China Sea. I couldn’t find the cost of that project but the detectors will be high tech, deep in the water (11,500 feet) and cover an area of almost 8 square miles (with a detector volume of 1.8 cubic miles). So it’s probably more expensive than IceCube and IceCube2 combined. In fact, it’s called a telescope.
The Russians also have a large ongoing neutrino detection effort. In the Caucasus mountains there’s the Baksan Neutrino Observatory which has been operating for nearly 60 years with tunnels and labs under 12000 feet of rock. They’re also planning a new major neutrino detector called the Baksan Large Underground Scintillation Telescope (BLUST). I couldn’t find the cost of this facility or BLUST but it’s easily in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
In addition, the Russians also have a TRIDENT like operation underneath lake Baikal. The first detector was completed in 1998, upgraded in 2005 and construction started in 2015 to build the Baikal Gigaton Volume Detector (Baikal-GVD). The first phase of the new project only has a cost of about $34 million ... but that's because it’s tiny compared to the other experiments like it and only 2500-4300 feet deep in the water.
Oh and let’s’ not forget the OPERA detector at the underground Gran Sasso National Laboratory in Italy (construction cost $160 million) and the 2100 meter deep Sudbury Neutrino Observatory in Ontario, Canada (at a cost of only $74 million because about $250 million dollars worth of heavy water was donated free of charge … but obviously someone paid for that too!).
All of the above only covers construction costs and each facility cost millions of dollars a year to run. Plus more detectors are planned. Look up P-ONE (equivalent to China’s TRIDENT, but off the coast of Canada). As you can see, there is some big bucks being spent in pursuit of neutrinos.
But I have to ask ... why? What use are neutrinos? Sure, there may be some medical uses and maybe detectors are good for locating nuclear explosions but what can justify DUNE’s excavation of three large caverns nearly a mile underground in South Dakota to study them (never mind all the other efforts)?
Sure, they say the experiments may yield clues about dark matter, but then they been saying that about experiment after experiment after experiment for 40 years and know little more than they did 40 years ago.
They also say it could tell us how black holes are born, but why exactly do we need to know that right now? Is that knowledge going to end the war in the Ukraine, stop illegal immigration, bring peace to the Middle East, make sure or elections are honest … or just put food on our tables? I don’t think so.
It seems to me that physicists these days have cart blanche to do anything they want at any cost without regard for how it will benefit the people who are paying for all their salaries, all their expensive toys, and study after study after study ... ad infinitum.
Now here is how Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory sums up the benefit of neutrinos …
https://neutrinos.fnal.gov/faq/what-are ... -research/
We’re not sure where the technology—the sensitive detectors, powerful particle accelerators, data processors, and other things that make experiments run—will eventually be useful. People are already dreaming up interesting applications for neutrinos and neutrino research. Because neutrinos are so small, wily, and hard to detect, there are many practical hurdles between the current state and implementation. Perhaps the closest to reality is using neutrino detectors to monitor nuclear proliferation for national security. It could also potentially be used to assess Earth’s crust for mineral deposits or provide a new kind of communication. We’re still very much at the beginning of our neutrino journey; what we do with this technology and information remains for the physicists of the future.
BUT HOW LONG IN THE FUTURE? Will anyone alive today (including our grand children) see a benefit from all this neutrino, Higgs Boson, dark matter, dark energy, etc, etc, etc research? If the answer is just *maybe*, then perhaps society has its priorities wrong right now. Perhaps it’s time to reign in the physicists before they help bankrupt us. Perhaps those minds would be better employed solving some of the REAL problems now facing us ... before they destroy us? Just saying ...
