After having been left for dead a few years ago, plans for a European Spallation Source have gained renewed momentum. This time, though, Europe’s biggest economies are on the sidelines; if the ESS goes ahead, neutron users will have countries not typically in leadership roles to thank.
Planning for the ESS began in the early 1990s. By 2002 scientists had a design in hand and were raring to get started on construction of the world’s most powerful neutron source. But poor marks from the national science council in Germany left the ESS orphaned (see Physics Today, Physics Today 0031-9228 55 11 2002 24 https://doi.org/10.1063/1.1534999 November 2002, page 24 ).
“In some ways, the ESS was ahead of its time,” says Colin Carlile, former head of the highest-flux reactor neutron source, the Institut Laue–Langevin in Grenoble, France. “Europe is well endowed with neutron facilities. The three big countries took the...
