Outreach

How You Can Help the NSLS

As users of the NSLS, your voice counts, and help to make the NSLS a better facility for your research. Please look at the issues presented and on this page, all of which could have a potential affect on the quality of your research environment, and make yourself heard by voicing your support for NSLS.

10/1/04 : Electricity costs at NSLS.
The cost of electricity to run the NSLS may increase substantially, decreasing resources at our facility. You can help by contacting Governor Pataki to explain why this would have a negative impact on your research, the NSLS, science in New York state. Click Here for a template letter that you can send to the Governor.

Since 1981, the New York Power Authority (NYPA) has supplied BNL with low-cost electric power, but the current BNL-NYPA contract expires on June 30, 2005. Brookhaven currently pays $0.052 per kilowatt hour (kWh) for electrical power. If the Laboratory's rates increase to .085 per kWh as currently estimated by NYPA, the cost of electricity required to run the NSLS will increase from $1.9 million to $3 million. If the current LIPA market rates of .110 per kWh are applied, the costs of electricity to operate the machine will go up as high as $4 million. This increased cost will necessitate a substantial reduction in staff and directly diminish our ability to support users and maintain high operational reliability of the NSLS. Furthermore, BNL is competing for $500M in federal funding to construct and operate an upgrade of the NSLS, called NSLS-II. If these rate increases are applied, it will add another $2-4 million to the annual projected operating costs of this new facility, making the Lab's proposal less attractive and less competitive. Your action can help prevent this.