A scaled-down RIA

A committee of the National Research Council has recommended that the federal government build a $500 million rare-isotope accelerator both to maintain US leadership in nuclear physics and to “resolve scientific issues of clear importance.” The recommendation by the NRC’s rare-isotope science assessment committee represents a revived, but dramatically scaled down, version of the $1.1 billion RIA facility proposal killed as too costly by the Department of Energy last year.

The committee, cochaired by former Nuclear Regulatory Commissioner John Ahearne and University of California, Berkeley, physicist Stuart Freedman, produced the report at the request of DOE and concluded that there is “a compelling scientific agenda for a future facility.” It could begin operation in about 2016.

“The rare-isotope project is now unstuck,” said University of Chicago astrophysicist Michael Turner, who is Argonne National Laboratory’s chief scientist. Argonne and the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory at Michigan State University are the “two players at the table” who would likely compete for the new facility, said Argonne director Robert Rosner.

NSCL director Konrad Gelbke said he has been planning a low-cost facility at Michigan State since RIA was killed. “Our position is we are the world leader right now in rare-isotope research and we have the best North American facility.”