LEAD, S.D. (AP) - Carve a few massive caverns nearly a mile below the surface of the Black Hills, haul off hundreds of thousands of tons of crushed rock, add the largest refrigeration system ever, then install the most sensitive particle detectors known to man, and you’d be ready to host what is arguably the most sophisticated science experiment ever staged on the planet.
That’s exactly what the Sanford Underground Research Facility and the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory are planning with the billion-dollar Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment.
“This is the first time an experiment of this scale has occurred anywhere in the world, and it’s going to be done right here,” Fermilab Deputy Project Manager Joshua Willhite told 100 Northern Hills residents during an informational meeting in Lead on Monday night.
The Rapid City Journal (https://bit.ly/2mZ9w6H ) reports that the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment, commonly referred to as DUNE, represents a scene straight out of a science fiction movie. As envisioned, scientists at the Fermilab near Chicago will fire a beam of tiny neutrinos at near-light speed that will carry the subatomic particles through solid rock 808 miles away to the Black Hills of South Dakota, where scientists deep underground at the Sanford Lab hope to “catch” the particles using sophisticated detectors.
The groundbreaking particle physics experiment currently has 960 collaborators from 163 institutions in 31 nations, Willhite said Monday. Sixty percent of those scientists are based outside the U.S., and that number is expected to grow, he noted.
“This has broad international support,” Willhite said.
On its own, the $300-plus million investment for the experiment at the Sanford Lab in Lead represents the largest single project in the history of South Dakota, says Sanford Lab Director Mike Headley.
More important to scientists working around the world to unravel the mysteries of the universe, the experiment has the potential to advance scientific knowledge and yield technological advancements on a par with the race to the moon in the 1960s, project advocates contend.
“DUNE collaborators hope to learn the role neutrinos play in the evolution of the universe; better understand how supernovae produce the heavy elements - iron, calcium, carbon and others - that are necessary for life; how much mass the neutrino has; and why the universe consists of matter rather than antimatter,” the Lab’s Communications Director Constance Walter said Thursday. “Any, or all, of these discoveries will transform our understanding of the universe and advance physics to a whole new level.”
Neutrino research is a competitive field, with several different experiments around the globe looking for the same things DUNE hopes to discover, Walter explained. The DUNE team of scientists and engineers is developing cutting-edge technology on a scale much larger than anything that has been developed for neutrino experiments, she said.
“In its space race with the Soviet Union, NASA discovered new technologies and gained incredible knowledge, which eventually landed American astronauts on the moon,” Walter added. “With the development of new and the enhancement of existing technologies for DUNE and the Long-Baseline Neutrino Facility, we could see much the same thing in physics research.”
Closer to home, the federally financed experiment could have economic benefits unparalleled in South Dakota history, according to study findings presented at Monday’s 70-minute presentation. Those “credible and conservative” estimates of the local economic impacts of the projected construction and operations of Long-Baseline Neutrino Facility and DUNE in South Dakota and Illinois took into account capital projects and direct spending, as well as additional business activity, jobs and payroll supported by that spending from 2016 through 2026.
During that period, the economic impact of LBNF/DUNE in the western South Dakota region will total $860 million in output and $330 million in earnings for local residents, according to the April 2016 study. The employment prospects for local residents will peak at more than 1,800 jobs in 2020, the study reported.
The total fiscal impact of LBNF/DUNE for the state of South Dakota is projected at $10.6 million in tax revenue from 2016 to 2026, peaking at $2.5 million in annual revenue in 2020, the study concluded.
Meanwhile, the study found the economic impact of LBNF/DUNE on the Chicago region would total $1.1 billion in output and $570 million in earnings for local residents. The impact on jobs for Illinois would peak at nearly 2,000 in 2024. The total fiscal impact for the state of Illinois would be $21 million in tax revenue from 2016 to 2026, peaking at $2.7 million in annual revenue in 2024, according to the study.
“This will be one of the largest science mega-projects ever to occur on U.S. soil,” Headley said Monday night. While already hosting several major underground experiments and an underground campus for students at Black Hills State University in Spearfish, Sanford Lab’s 163 current employees are gearing up for the new experiment, he and Willhite noted.
Work continues on the $32.2 million refurbishment of the lab’s Ross Shaft, originally built in the 1930s by the Homestake Gold Mine. Crews began the project, involving 6 million pounds of new steel, in August 2012, and it remains on track for completion later this year, Headley said. The upgraded shaft will allow rock to be removed from underground to create space for the DUNE, while also providing access for crews, scientists and equipment in the future, he explained.
Sanford Lab also has secured city easements to build a pipe conveyor capable of transporting an estimated 875,000 tons of rock excavated for the DUNE, which eventually will find its way to the massive Open Cut near the Sanford Lab Homestake Visitor Center.
Willhite explained that local residents would notice more workers, more traffic and, from fiscal 2019 to 2022, likely would hear ventilation fans and noise from rock crushing operations tied to the “huge underground excavations.”
“It’s something you’ll be able to hear, but it’s not getting up to the annoying level,” he said. Willhite added that the project would incorporate noise and dust controls and limit drilling and blasting to 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. to minimize adverse impacts on the community.
Numerous other infrastructure improvements would be tied to preparing the underground lab for the DUNE, Willhite and Headley explained. Among those projects are electrical upgrades, reinforced headframes, rock crushing systems and new buildings, compressors and electrical substations.
Underground, the logistics of the project are daunting. Willhite said 54,000 cubic yards of concrete would be poured, the experiment’s cryostats alone would require 14,000 tons of steel, and its four detectors would use 70,000 tons of liquid argon.
“I think we’re probably going to install the world’s largest refrigeration system,” he said. “These are unconventional facilities.”
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Information from: Rapid City Journal, https://www.rapidcityjournal.com
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