Interesting that they're still providing 1-5 MW during the multi-year shutdown. The LHC won't even be running but the cooling infrastructure keeps going. Makes me wonder what the steady-state thermal output is across all of CERN. 200 MW peak during operations, but clearly something substantial even when the collider is off.

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clickety_clack 7 hours ago | parent [-]

I wonder if it’s to avoid thermal expansion, and maybe fatigue related to cycling of expansion and contraction.

	▲	estimator7292 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Yeah, it's probably not good to let your miles and miles of superconducting magnets get warm and expand, even slightly. At the scale of the LHC you're probably looking at meters of displacement across the whole structure.