In the News
External news and journal publications discussing FRIB science.
What? No FRIB? That was a gasp and collective outcry you heard across Michigan on Wednesday when Energy Secretary Steven Chu said in Detroit that federal money is uncertain for the $600-million project.
Comments by Secretary of Energy Steven Chu at a meeting of the Detroit Economic Club this morning raised questions about the future of the Facility of Rare Isotope Beams at Michigan State University.
Federal funding for a $600 million nuclear research facility under development at Michigan State University could be in doubt in the face of the nation's economic problems and the federal budget squeeze, U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu said Wednesday.
Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., issued the following statement after public reports that Energy Secretary Steven Chu said in Michigan today that the department has not decided whether to move forward with the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams at Michigan State University.
The fate of a $600 million federally funded research project that would cement Michigan's reputation as a center for advanced technologies and atomic research came into question today as Steven Chu, U.S. Department of Energy Secretary, said funding for the project is uncertain.
The University of Michigan, Michigan State University, Wayne State University and Western Michigan University continue to push the boundaries of discovery in the area of biomedical research as they search for better ways to cure diseases and develop new medical devices to help patients navigate their disabilities. And our many other colleges and universities are working hard to educate the next generation of scientists and engineers as well.
The first glass panels now are being put up in the exterior courtyard area of the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum, and the university continues to prepare utilities at the future site for the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams, or FRIB, campus construction officials said today.
Central Michigan University's department of physics is planning to hire three tenure-track faculty to assist Michigan Sate University research rare isotopes. The new faculty will join the two current faculty members working on the research, Physics Professors Joseph Finck and Mihai Horoi. Finck and Horoi have already been working with other colleagues at MSU's National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory studying atoms.
The great thing about Michigan State University is that I could do Tech Tours from now until Doomsday and they'd never run out of cool things to show me. My final visit was a repeat with Thomas Glasmacher, director of the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams, the $600 million atom smasher MSU will build between now and 2017.
Under a growing cloud of concerns surrounding science funding cutbacks by the federal government, more than 200 scientists flocked to MSU on Aug. 18-20 for a conference with implications for the future of nuclear physics work in the U.S. All the while, conference attendees looked forward to the future of MSU’s Facility for Rare Isotope Beams, or FRIB, a project with an estimated completion date of 2020 and a budget topping $600 million.
FRIB, expected to serve around 800 users a year, will accelerate ionized atoms down a 500-metre-long series of tunnels folded around like a paper clip and then shatter them against a graphite target to produce beams of rare isotopes at higher intensity than at any other facility in the world. The fragments could include thousands of isotopes that are predicted but have never been seen on Earth.
Michigan State University is taking a bold step in pushing up the construction timetable for the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams, but it’s the right step. A project of this magnitude will have lasting benefits in Greater Lansing. Its economic impact during its first decade is estimated at $1 billion. Construction is expected to create more than 5,000 jobs. Once operating, it will have some 180 scientists and hundreds of additional support personnel.
