January 29, 2026
Hot collider, hotter comments
Heating homes with the largest particle accelerator
From smashing particles to warming pajamas—CERN’s hot new side hustle sparks comment wars
TLDR: CERN is reusing heat from the Large Hadron Collider to warm a new French heating network, cutting gas and CO2. Comments range from April Fools jokes to cross-border fairness questions, with crypto heat memes and conspiracy jabs—proof that science can be hot while debates run hotter.
Yes, the world’s biggest science machine is now a neighborhood heater. CERN’s Large Hadron Collider is piping captured warmth to a new network in Ferney‑Voltaire, France, enough for thousands of homes, cutting gas and CO2. Cue thermonuclear comments: “Conspiracy nutjobs incoming,” warned anon291, while ck2 joked they checked the calendar for April Fools. Fans called it clever; skeptics pictured Facebook uncle threads about “radioactive radiators.”
Under the hood: water used to cool collider gear gets hot, then two 5‑megawatt heat exchangers hand that heat off to town. Think “megawatt” as thousands of kettles boiling at once. Killer detail that set nerds buzzing? Even during a long maintenance pause in 2026 (LS3), CERN will push 1–5 MW most of the time. mkw5053 wondered how much heat CERN kicks out even when “off.”
Then came the border banter. Kakacik, a local, asked who actually gets the warmth—dense Swiss housing or French flats—and how fairly it’s split. Meanwhile, crypto‑bro heaters are canceled as fph crowned this the new nerd‑approved home heat: “Bitcoin‑mining space heaters are out.” Beyond the memes, CERN says more heat recovery is coming, saving 25–30 GWh yearly by 2027. The crowd verdict: science is hot, the comments are truly hotter.
Key Points
- •CERN began supplying recovered heat from the LHC to Ferney-Voltaire’s new district heating network in mid-January.
- •Two 5‑MW heat exchangers at LHC Point 8 transfer thermal energy, currently providing up to 5 MW and potentially up to 10 MW.
- •The network, inaugurated on 12 December, is expected to serve the equivalent of several thousand homes and avoid thousands of tonnes of CO2.
- •During Long Shutdown 3 starting summer 2026, CERN expects to supply 1–5 MW except for five months across the multi-year period.
- •CERN’s broader ISO 50001-aligned energy recovery initiatives aim to save 25–30 GWh per year from 2027, including projects at Prévessin and Meyrin.