Michigan business, economic and political leaders met Tuesday to announce a statewide effort to help MSU win a national competition for the $550 million Facility for Rare Isotope Beams, a project funded by the U.S. Department of Energy that would update the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory on campus.
“This is to assure that we have and can show to the Department of Energy that we have the kind of statewide support that I’m sure Chicago and Argonne (National Laboratory) will have from Illinois,” said MSU president Lou Anna K. Simon.
The Argonne National Laboratory is a DOE lab affiliated with the University of Chicago.
If won, the facility could generate nearly $1 billion in economic activity over the next 20 years, said Patrick Anderson, CEO of Anderson Economic Group, which studied the FRIB’s possible impact on the state.
“This is an immediate infusion of a large amount of construction spending,” Anderson said. “This will be sending money on the ground in Michigan, most of which would be federally funded. Within a year of winning this grant, I would expect to start to see some serious economic benefits in Michigan.”
The facility would also create 400 new jobs in the state, Anderson said, including visiting researchers and companies that would come to the area to use the facility.
Simon said being part of a world-class research facility will help MSU in its bid for the facility. MSU ranks No. 2 in the nation in its nuclear physics graduate degree program, and awards 10 percent of the nation’s nuclear physics doctoral degrees.
Phillip Zecher, who graduated in 1996 with a nuclear physics degree from MSU, said just having the Cyclotron at the university is a draw for physics students.
“It will keep it competitive, it will keep it the place to go to study nuclear physics,” said Zecher, now a member of the Advisory Leadership Committee. “Like Konrad (Gelbke, director of the NSCL) said, they turn out more nuclear phsics grads here than any place else already. Without these kinds of projects and things going on at MSU, those students will start going some place else. So it’s important to keep this the center of excellence in the U.S.”
U.S. Senator Carl Levin, D-Mich., was at the meeting to show his support for the project, and said it is needed to remain a leader in the world of nuclear science.
“All of our scientists say that if we fall behind in the world of nuclear science this is going to have a major cost. In terms of our economy, we’ll be purchasing other patents products instead of producing them on our own. Obviously, that’s not the way America wants to proceed,” Levin said. “Nuclear science is a big chunk of science, a big source of advances for human beings in terms of health care, in terms of advanced materials, and we want to be the leader in the world. To do that the decision was made that we were going to fund nationally this particular facility now it’s hopefully going to be coming to Michigan and MSU.”
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