ESSS

FJZ

RAL/CCLRC

S/S-A

YESS

The Research Centre Jülich prepared the site-bid and proposed a site near to the Research Centre of Jülich, which lies in the so-called EUREGIO region, close to Belgium and the Netherlands. The site fulfilled all the stringent geological, traffic-infrastructural, technical, and scientific criteria demanded by ESS Council.

The researchers of Research Centre Jülich were crucially involved in planning the ESS jointly with numerous other European institutes from the very first beginning, this did not only include drawing up building and cost plans, but also involved the optimisation of the quality of the plant by new technical and scientific developments. In addition, prototypes of individual components were being produced in order to verify their functional efficiency at an early stage.

For example, a full stage model of the ESS target and its surroundings, the so-called JESSICA experiment, in which the desired neutrons will be later produced, had been successfully designed, built and tested in Jülich. Besides that, the Centre has had decades of experience in the construction and operation of large research facilities, i.e. AVR, MERLIN, DIDO, TEXTOR and COSY, so that much of the necessary infrastructure has been already available.

Among the successes of Jülich, neutron researchers of Jülich deciphered the underlying mechanisms of novel plastic molecules allowing the cleansing power of detergent surfactants to be multiplied. Polymers developed in Jülich have been tested in cooperation with more than 20 companies from variety of industrial sectors. Further examples are improved antifreeze for diesel fuel or novel constituents for car tyres.

One reason for Jülich’s application was the scientific and economic implications ESS would have had for the region. During the construction phase, 700 to 900 jobs would have been created in NRW. Later on, the ESS operating cost of about 150 million Euros per year would have guaranteed roughly 650 direct and 1,500 indirect jobs.



The State Parliament and the government of North Rhine-Westphalia had their minds set: On March 21, 2002, the State Parliament stated in a joint proposal by all parliamentary groups: “The State Parliament is convinced that among all the European candidate sites there is no better site than Jülich for the ESS.” Prime Minister Wolfgang Clement endorsed this resolution and promised that the state of North Rhine-Westphalia would contribute 150 millions Euros to the construction costs.



More information: http://www.fz-juelich.de