Fermilab's New Commercial Research Center

PolygamousRanchKid writes "When completed in 2013, the new research center will wrap around the Collider Detector at Fermilab and provide a state-of-the-art facility for research, development and industrialization of particle accelerator technology. Whereas particle accelerators like Fermilab's now-defunct Tevatron were once the realm of the scientist doing basic research on the nature of the universe, accelerators now have a broader mandate for commercial applications, said Fermilab Director Pier Oddone. The goal for the facility is to develop relationships between scientists and private businesses to develop accelerator technology that can be used in medicine, industry and national security. Though most people think of accelerators on the scale of Fermilab's Tevatron or the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, more than 30,000 smaller particle accelerators exist around the world and can be used for applications other than basic science research. 'The innovation now implemented in many areas often came about as the by-product of our pushing the technological envelope of our own accelerators...needed for advancing particle physics,' said Oddone."

Definite possibilities

[Droog57]

I was somewhat surprised that they completely shut down the Tevatron, since I am sure that many Corporations or Research Companies would drool at the chance to gather data specific to various technologies that are out there now in the Commercial world. It would be interesting to know if the Accelerator could be made to be commercially viable..