[Analog24]

You have to consider more than the upfront cost. These machines are incredibly expensive to run and consume a tremendous amount of energy. The long term environmental cost needs to be factored in as well.

[whatshisface]

That's still pretty minor compared to the energy and environmental costs of anything else.

[Analog24]

No it's not. The LHC uses as much power as a small to medium sized city [0]. The next generation collider will obviously require a lot more energy.

What's your point anyways? We should only consider the cost and environmental impact of something if it's comparable to the most costly and impactful endeavors out there?

[0] https://home.cern/science/engineering/powering-cern

[ravedave5]

How much energy do you think the US military goes through in a day? LHC is probably .1% of that.

[Analog24]

So why do we bother doing anything? Why recycle at all? Let's just give up everything since the US military blows us all away in terms of scale.

[BentFranklin]

To first order, environmental impacts are roughly proportional to the amount of energy used, which is proportional to the amount of money spent. To first order.