Since 2026, the Large Hadron Collider has provided heat to thousands of French homes and businesses through a system that harnesses hot water from the accelerator's cooling circuits.

On average, the Large Hadron Collider uses 1.3 terawatt-hours of electricity annually—equivalent to about 124,000 US homes—generated by a French substation.

The Large Hadron Collider is the world's largest cryogenic system, which uses 10,000 metric tons of liquid nitrogen and 120 metric tons of helium to cool 36,000 metric tons of magnets to temperatures colder than outer space.

Through 2038, the Large Hadron Collider research program is expected to generate societal benefits of €25.6B, or €3.3B more than operating costs and investments.

The Large Hadron Collider repurposed an excavation tunnel built for the Large Electron-Positron Collider, which was used until 2000 and whose construction involved the largest civil engineering project in Europe before the Channel Tunnel.

Although built from 1996 to 2008, the Large Hadron Collider relies on accelerators built starting in 1954 to help bring protons to 99.9999991% the speed of light—about 2.73 million football fields per second.

Each year, the Large Hadron Collider undergoes a winter shutdown—when electricity costs are highest—and bringing it back online requires weeks of tests, including some involving high-energy particles from outer space.

At the CERN Control Center, where the Large Hadron Collider and connected accelerators are managed, champagne bottles from parties commemorating major milestones, such as the first collisions or a new record energy, are collected.

In nuclear reactors, water acts as a coolant and moderator, slowing neutrons produced in nuclear reactions so they are more likely to interact with nuclear fuel and generate sustainable energy.

Watch an animated visualization of how the Large Hadron Collider works, including how particles are accelerated through a series of machines and how collision data is collected and distributed worldwide.

Learn about five of the largest particle accelerators on Earth, which, as of 2026, are led by the Large Hadron Collider at the European Organization for Nuclear Research.

Aquifer thermal energy storage systems bank water heated during the summer in aquifers—layers of porous rock, gravel, and sand filled with groundwater—which are then collected in winter to warm homes.

At the Large Hadron Collider, protons are accelerated so close to the speed of light that they would lag behind a laser by just 10 feet after 14 minutes of travel.

The total length of superconducting wire at the Large Hadron Collider spans about 250,000 kilometers (155,000 miles)—enough to wrap around the equator 6.2 times.

The Worldwide LHC Computing Grid—a distributed system of 2 billion gigabytes of storage across over 40 countries—manages data produced by the Large Hadron Collider.

CERN—the European Organization for Nuclear Research—is the world's largest particle physics laboratory, with the Large Hadron Collider serving as its largest tool.

Data centers require interconnected server- and building-level cooling systems

Computer equipment can be cooled by circulating cold air or water through the equipment racks, siphoning the heated fluid into a heat exchanger. This exchanger transfers thermal energy to building cooling systems, which can dispose of the heat by evaporative cooling—the way humans cool off by sweating—or via air conditioning.

The first circular particle accelerator was narrower than the average cereal bowl

The 1939 Nobel Prize in physics was awarded to Ernest Lawrence for inventing the cyclotron. By comparison, the Large Hadron Collider is 5 miles in diameter and is the largest cryogenic system in the world, cooling its electromagnets to temperatures colder than those found in outer space.

Particle accelerators propel matter toward small targets at high speed

Devices like cathode-ray tube televisions were once basic particle accelerators, but modern ones, such as the Large Hadron Collider, use massive magnetic fields and circular tunnels to achieve energies high enough to recreate the conditions just after the big bang.

Data centers can be kept cool by circulating fluid over plates atop high-temperature components or by submerging equipment in non-corrosive oil that does not conduct electricity.

Geothermal power can generate electricity and provide direct heating for homes

By drilling several kilometers through penetrable rock, wells can access highly pressurized groundwater warmed by thermal energy trapped beneath Earth's surface. This water can be turned into steam to create electricity in generators. Heating systems several meters deep can pump fluid underground before circulating it through buildings.

The High Luminosity Large Hadron Collider will provide a tenfold increase in particle collisions compared with the initial LHC infrastructure by increasing the number of ions in collision bundles and by concentrating the ion beams.

Heat pumps use an easily boilable chemical to regulate temperature

In air conditioners, warm air is pulled from a home to turn a refrigerant into a gas, which is then compressed, raising its temperature. The gas naturally releases this energy to the comparatively cooler environment when exposed, then expands and is reused in the system. Heaters run in reverse, with the refrigerant picking up energy from the comparatively warmer environment.

Geothermal power plants can provide large-scale energy storage for other systems

These facilities can store excess energy from solar and wind power as hot water or steam, which can be used to run turbines to generate electricity when other renewable energy sources are unavailable. Simulations have found efficiencies of 90% during a storage-use cycle, making it comparable to lithium-ion batteries.

A laser energy system has allowed scientists to achieve fusion ignition

In 2022, scientists used lasers to create a powerful implosion that bound hydrogen isotopes together, releasing more energy than was input into the system. Research is ongoing to achieve this self-sustaining reaction with larger yields and energy gains.

A basement of mechanical systems—collectively called the technosphere—supports B2

Twenty-six underground air handlers heat, cool, filter and manage the humidity of the air across the biomes of Biosphere 2. The above-ground Energy Center complex provides continuous power to these and other systems, including heating and cooling water for laboratory experiments and personal use.

Some geothermal power plants make electricity using a secondary fluid

Direct dry-steam systems pull underground steam into a turbine-generator system, while flash and double-flash cycle systems spray extracted liquid water into a low-pressure tank, causing it to rapidly vaporize—"flash"—before moving to the turbine. Binary cycle systems use the extracted steam and water to flash a second fluid that easily boils, which then drives the turbine.

At CERN's Antimatter Factory, researchers create and guide antiprotons and antielectrons together to form antihydrogen, and all these antiparticles are analyzed to help scientists study the behavior of antimatter.

Explore the components of the linear particle accelerator at Los Alamos

Located at the site of bomb design and development for the Manhattan Project, LANSCE features an injector system for hydrogen ions, a series of tanks with alternating electric fields for proton acceleration, and an isotope production facility that creates radioisotopes for medical treatments.

The oldest nuclear fission reactor on Earth formed naturally in West Africa about 2 billion years ago, where groundwater enabled atoms in uranium deposits to split, releasing energy.

Take a 360-degree tour of ATLAS, one of two general-purpose detectors at the Large Hadron Collider and the largest particle detector by volume ever built. (VR device-compatible)

At the Large Hadron Collider, scientists have transformed lead into gold—a process known as chrysopoeia, which alchemists sought for centuries.

Thermodynamics makes building data centers in space to cool equipment impractical

Rather than cooling via interactions with flowing cold air or water, data centers in space would dissipate energy primarily by radiation, in which an object at any temperature above absolute zero emits light. This method is much less efficient at cooling and would require hyperscale data centers to have radiator panels thousands of times larger than those on the International Space Station.

Wastewater from geothermal power plants helps melt sidewalk snow in Iceland

Located on the Mid-Atlantic ridge, where the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates move apart, the nation saw geothermal power meet more than 90% of its heating demand in 2024. After the hot water produced by these plants is used to heat homes and businesses, it is transferred through small pipes beneath Reykjavík's sidewalks.

Watch a server submerged in a fluid continue to run and stay cool by boiling the liquid away.

Unlike solar panels, which convert sunlight directly into electricity, concentrated solar power systems focus sunlight to heat a material that boils water, which then drives a turbine-generator to produce electricity.

Since 2022, two-thirds of data centers have been built in water-stressed areas

In residential evaporative cooling systems, 10% of consumed water is lost to evaporation compared to 80% in data centers. Although some companies have pledged to become water-positive—replenishing more freshwater than they consume—by 2030 through a transition to air cooling, only 10% of data center operators track water use across all their facilities.

In 1971, a $35 ferret helped clean the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory

Lacking cleaning robots, Fermilab scientists purchased a ferret named Felicia when metal slivers obstructing accelerated particles were identified. They trained her to run strings through vacuum tubes more than 90 meters long, and cleanser-dipped swabs were then tied to the strings and pulled through to remove the debris.

Before 1932, when particle accelerators were first used for nuclear research, scientists relied on naturally radioactive substances to advance their understanding of the atomic nucleus.