Europe ’s energy crisis hits science

Soon after Jessica Dempsey became director of the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy (ASTRON) in December 2021, she was forced to focus not on the stars, but on the electric bill. ASTRON operates the Low-Frequency Array (LOFAR), which relies on large computer clusters to process radio astronomy data. They consume about 2000 megawatt-hours per year—the equivalent of 800 households. When Dempsey sought to renew ASTRON’s energy contracts this summer, she was shocked to find costs had tripled from 2021 levels. To keep the LOFAR running, Dempsey plans to seek emergency energy funding from the Dutch government; without it, she may have to scale back observations. “It’s certainly an existential crisis if these [price] increases continue,” she says. Surging energy prices are hitting Europe hard—and it’s not just households that are feeling the pain. Institutes that operate energy-hungry supercomputers, accelerators, and laser beamlines are also struggling—and they may be coal mine canaries for the rest of science. If prices continue to soar this fall and winter, “The impact for science is going to be significant,” says Martin Freer, a nuclear physicist who directs the University of Birmingham’s energy institute. The primary cause of the crisis is a rebound from an economic slowdown during the COVID-19 pandemic. Power generators that had been shut down could not ramp up in time to meet renewed demand, says Jonathan Stern, who studies natural ga...
Source: ScienceNOW - Category: Science Source Type: news