Info on the outcomes of CERN’s annual meeting in Chamonix this week (Feb. 6–10 2012):
In 2012 LHC collision energies should be increased from 3.5 to 4 TeV per beam and the luminosity is planned to be highly increased. This means much more particle collisions at higher energies.
CERN plans to shut down the LHC in 2013 for about 20 months to do a very costly upgrade (CHF 1 Billion?) to run the LHC at 7 TeV per beam afterwards.
Future plans: A High-Luminosity LHC (HL-LHC) is planned, “tentatively scheduled to start operating around 2022” — with a beam energy increased from 7 to 16.5 TeV(!).
One might really ask where this should lead to – sooner or later – without the risks being properly investigated.
For comparison: The AMS experiment for directly measuring cosmic rays in the atmosphere operates on a scale around 1.5 TeV. Very high energetic cosmic rays have only been measured indirectly (their impulse). Sort, velocity, mass and origin of these particles are unknown. In any way, the number of collisions under the extreme and unprecedented artificial conditions at the LHC is of astronomical magnitudes higher than anywhere else in the nearer cosmos.
There were many talks on machine safety at the Chamonix meeting. The safety of humans and environment obviously were not an official topic. No reaction on the recent claim for a really neutral, external and multi-disciplinary risk assessment by now.
Official reports from the LHC performance workshop by CERN Bulletin:
http://cdsweb.cern.ch/journal/CERNBulletin/2012/06/News%20Articles/?ln=de
LHC Performance Workshop — Chamonix 2012:
https://indico.cern.ch/conferenceOtherViews.py?view=standard&confId=164089
Feb 10 2012: COMMUNICATION directed to CERN for a neutral and multidisciplinary risk assessment to be done before any LHC upgrade:
http://lhc-concern.info/?page_id=139
More info at LHC-Kritik / LHC-Critique: Network for Safety at experimental sub-nuclear Reactors: