Back to the Future, β meson collider

Soon the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, SLAC, will shut down their β meson collider. The Department of Energy, DOE, cut the 2008 budget for hi-energy physics, leading to the cut.
The SLAC’s β meson machine produces particles as part of an international collaboration studying antimatter behavior. SLAC’s collider is not the only physics program affected by the budget limitations.

If we are even halfway serious about energy independence and CO2 emissions, and how can we not be, these high energy projects will be critical to our future.

I don’t believe in “Back to the Future” energy solutions. Sustainable clean energy independence will depend on new and continuously advancing technology, not a rethinking of organic fuels. For instance, if we develop coal with carbon sequestration, we are still challenged by the carbon waste and a low efficiency energy source. Arguably another country moving to nuclear or solar or more exotic source will drain us of our scientific capacity, leaving us again dependent --- dependent in technology and human capital. Lower efficiency equates to a lesser economy as well. Our technological edge is lost, what seems like energy independence with old technology and past abundance becomes an illusion. While coal may make special interests rich, old solutions will leave us technologically and economically dependent on other nations.

Historically, one might envision an energy source continuum, based on the chemistry and physics of combustible[1] or otherwise reactive fuel. The hierarchy, beginning in the distant past with wood, advances through charcoal, coal, alcohol, fuel oil, natural gas to hydro-electric; each enteration achieving stepwise a higher level of efficiency. Energy per dollar, per volume or per weight, all is relevant. Present clean energy involves nuclear, solar, and physical sources such as wind, sea, geothermal and heat pumps, higher efficiencies yet. The future promises cleaner and dramatically more powerful sources: fusion, greater understanding and use of solar, cosmic radiation and, relevant to the SLAC collider, the use of antimatter, even dark-matter as a yet more abundant, affordable and efficient source of energy.

From an economic standpoint, energy is the cheap exploitable resource that drives the economy with opportunity, production, productivity, thus our wealth and standard of living. Energy is such a critical infrastructure to our economy that it cannot be left to sanctioned monopolies, politicians, and special interests -- or to chance. Increasing levels of high tech. competition, unlimited R&D and education are the keys. Regulated utilities will not back off, nor will they try new technology, not when they each own half a state with an exclusive territory. Government cannot dictate the direction or the outcome but it can promote education, R&D, and small highly competitive solutions with highly distributed and diverse energy options. We cannot go back to the future.

Cosmology and string theory may or may not be pipe dreams, but black holes, dark matter, positron electron annihilation and helium deuterium reactions are not. The product of SLAC’s β meson collider may be as important to the DOE as Scottie in the engine room of the Starship Enterprise.


[1] Handbook of Chemistry and Physics: Enthalpy p