Scientists propose site in Tohoku for International Linear Collider

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A group of Japanese scientists has proposed the Kitakami mountain area as a candidate site for the construction of the International Linear Collider (ILC), a next-generation particle accelerator that will allow physicists to explore rudimentary questions about the universe.

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The Kitakami area straddles Iwate and Miyagi prefectures. The team of physicists had also looked at the Sefuri mountain area in Fukuoka and Saga prefectures, Jiji Press reported Saturday.

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The ILC will complement the Large Hadron Collider at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), which confirmed the existence of the Higgs boson – a particle understood to impart mass. It would be built in a tunnel about 30 kilometers long.

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The project was set in motion when an international team of scientists and others drafted a report on the engineering design of the ILC in June. Construction costs are estimated to total 830 billion yen ($8.67 billion) and the project is expected to generate 530,000 jobs.

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According to the Japan Productivity Center, the project is expected to yield an economic impact of around 45 trillion yen over 30 years.

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With the construction site expected to be decided around 2015, Japan will talk to other participants in the ILC project including the United States, Europe, China and Russia.

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Construction is expected to take around a decade, with experiments beginning around 2030. If the collider is built in Japan, then the country is expected to shoulder about half of the construction costs.

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