Fermilab getting $260 million to cover rising construction costs
Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory announced Friday it is getting $260 million from the federal Inflation Reduction Act to help pay for the rising construction costs of several projects.
The U.S. Department of Energy allocated funds to its 17 national laboratories to mitigate the increase in project costs as a result of inflation, according to a news release from the laboratory.
Fermilab will use the funding to help pay for the construction of the Long-Baseline Neutrino Facility at the Batavia laboratory. The facility will shoot subatomic particles called neutrinos underground to a detector in South Dakota as part of the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment, which is studying the fundamental properties of matter.
It also will be used on equipment Fermilab is building for the Large Hadron Collider at the CERN laboratory in Europe and for an experiment converting muon particles to electrons.
"I'm extremely grateful for the Department of Energy in allocating this funding to our laboratory," Fermilab Director Lia Merminga said in the news release. "This money will allow us to mitigate the effects of inflation, deliver projects and scientific results on time, and honor our commitments to national and international partners."
She said Fermilab expects to spend more than $500 million constructing new buildings and other infrastructure in the next five years.
More information about the projects is available on the laboratory's website, fnal.gov.