What does the Spanish-Swedish agreement involve?
The agreement signed by Spain and Sweden regarding the European Spallation Neutron Source (ESS) will result, for the first time in Southern Europe, in the construction of one of the largest facilities on the European Union Roadmap of Large Science Facilities for the next few decades.
What are the terms of this agreement?
The agreement sets in motion a common European project, a single ESS candidacy with two locations, the Headquarters in Lund (Sweden) and Headquarters in Bilbao, which will be an important complementary facility to the former. Similarly, Spain will receive the vice chair of the ESS Governing Council and 10% ownership of the science facility.
Has this agreement been ratified by countries such as Germany and France, who will also have a stake in ESS?
Spain and Sweden have signed an agreement to present a single candidacy in which the ESS project will have two locations, the headquarters in Lund and another main facility in Bilbao.
Is it possible that the ESS may not be built in Sweden? When will the final decision be made?
A firm commitment was made by the countries that attended the meeting in Brussels on 28th May to carry out the ESS construction project.
How viable will the Bilbao Headquarters be if the ESS ends up not being built?
The Bilbao's office will be entirely independent of the Headquarters in Lund. The facility in Bilbao, where activity in the short term will involve research, design, development and the manufacturing of the technologies to be installed in Lund, plans to provide research and technological development services to other international projects in the area of large science facilities, such as those in France, the United States, the United Kingdom and Japan.
What will the main objectives of the Bilbao Headquarters be?
- To act as the main centre for research, development and testing of the different ESS components, both during the initial stages of conceptual design review and also in the development of the detailed design and construction and future developments to improve or enlarge the ESS. - Provide the scientific community with a remote access station to carry out experiments at the ESS, which would work as an intellectual, educational and dissemination centre for Central and Southern Europe. Researchers will also be able to use the facilities at the Headquarters to develop scientific instrumentation, both for the ESS and for other science facilities.
How many people will work at the Bilbao Headquarters?
Around 80 people from Spain and other countries.
Are the people who currently work for the ESS-Bilbao consortium included in this number?
Work is going ahead as usual, but ESS-Bilbao is no longer a candidate to become one of the largest science facilities in Europe in the last few decades.
How much will be invested in building and starting up the Bilbao's office?
Total investment will amount to 180 million euros, including 30 million euros already set aside by the Spanish and Basque Governments in 2009. This investment will rapidly boost economic growth in the region. The economic impact on the region will be three times the investment that is going to made.
When will building work begin on the Bilbao's office?
Work on the science facility in Bilbao will begin immediately in order to be operative by 2011.
Whereabouts in Bilbao will the facility be located?
We are studying the most suitable locations for the centre, which will be one of the largest science facilities in Southern Europe.
How much space will the new facility occupy?
Some 15,000 square metres.
What is the functions of neutrons?
Neutrons are particles within the nucleus of atoms, and are used to study materials, its condition, characteristics and properties. They are introduced into the material to study its atomic structure.
What is the value of this research?
Research using neutrons has many applications: medicine, pharmaceuticals, life sciences, information technology, transport, the environment, materials science, engineering, theoretical physics, etc. Use of neutrons helps us to understand how materials behave and to study their atomic structure.
It is a technique used to produce neutrons. There are two ways to produce neutrons on a large scale: one by fission in a nuclear reactor and the other by spallation, which produces fragments of material. It is a technique for splitting a heavy atomic nucleus so that it emits neutrons.
So what is a Spallation Source?
It is a large scientific facility that allows neutrons to be produced on a large scale.
The facility consists of several parts: a source that produces hydrogen ions, which are guided through a linear accelerator (LINAC) to the spallation target, which emits neutrons uopn impact. Emitted neutrons are guided to different stations where experiments on the atomic structure of the material are performed.
The main parts of a Spallation Source are the accelerator, the target and the instruments.
What are the benefits of this technique?
The Spallation Source is used in almost all scientific fields: medicine, physics, chemistry, biology, archaeology, engineering, geology, etc.
What advantages does Spallation have over other neutron production techniques?
The heat produced by each neutron generated is much less in spallation compared with other processes such as nuclear fission. The ratio is 55/180.
What role has Europe taken in neutron research?
Traditionally, Europe has led the way in neutron research. In Europe, there are 5,500 scientists who periodically use neutrons for research. In Spain, around 250 researchers work with neutrons, according to the Sociedad Española de Técnicas Neutrónicas (Spanish Society of Neutron Techniques).
The OECD reports that Europe could be a “neutron desert” by 2015 unless existing regional sources are expanded (ISIS in the UK and ILL in France) or a high-intensity spallation source is built. For this reason, the ESS (European Spallation Source) initiative was set up in 2004.
The ESS has been presented as an alternative to the structures built in Japan and the United States.