Chu’s $25 billion estimate for the International Linear Collider
DOI: 10.1063/PT.5.023342
Two weeks ago, Chu said that “the total price tag will be about $25 billion.” But Barry Barish, a physicist at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena who directs the ILC Global Design Effort , says that figure is likely an overestimate and that the US would pay only a fraction of the total anyway. He worries that when Department of Energy (DOE) officials quote such huge numbers, they undermine the project’s chance of winning congressional support. “If it turns off all dialogue [with other officials] then it hurts us,” Barish says. Still, Barish says he’s optimistic that Chu, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist, will approach the project with an open mind.
