FAIR, the international particle accelerator facility in Darmstadt, Germany, is once again undergoing a major price increase. According to a letter from the Parliamentary State Secretary at the Federal Ministry of Research, Thomas Rachel, the management has informed the ministry of expected additional costs of 145 million euros for ongoing, already commissioned tree removals until 2025. In addition, there are cost risks amounting to 448 million euros, said the letter, which was obtained by Deutsche Presse-Agentur.
Basic research into the history of the universe
The FAIR international particle accelerator facility to the northeast of the GSI Helmholtz Center for Heavy Ion Research is considered one of the world’s largest facilities for basic research in physics. Based on 2005 prices, the original budget for the project was around 1.3 billion euros. After an increase in price of several hundred million euros was last known in 2019, the latest estimate of total investments on a price basis for 2020 was 3.1 billion euros according to GSI data.
The main funders of the project are the German government and the state of Hesse. FAIR’s foreign partners are Finland, France, India, Poland, Romania, Russia, Sweden and Slovenia. The particle accelerator facility will be used to research the origins of the universe – in an unimaginably small scale. With the facility on about 150.000 square meters and a total of 20 buildings, according to earlier information, matter can be created and researched in the laboratory in a way that only occurs in the distant universe.