Sustainability Strategy for the Cool Copper Collider

TL;DR

This paper assesses the environmental impact of the proposed Cool Copper Collider, introducing strategies and metrics to reduce and compare the carbon footprint of Higgs factory proposals, emphasizing sustainable construction and operation.

Contribution

It presents a novel framework for evaluating and minimizing the carbon impact of Higgs factories, with specific strategies for the Cool Copper Collider.

Findings

The Cool Copper Collider has a lower embodied carbon due to its compact design.

Strategies can significantly reduce the operational carbon footprint.

A new metric balances physics goals with environmental impact.

Abstract

The particle physics community has agreed that an electron-positron collider is the next step for continued progress in this field, giving a unique opportunity for a detailed study of the Higgs boson. Several proposals are currently under evaluation of the international community. Any large particle accelerator will be an energy consumer and so, today, we must be concerned about its impact on the environment. This paper evaluates the carbon impact of the construction and operations of one of these Higgs factory proposals, the Cool Copper Collider. It introduces several strategies to lower the carbon impact of the accelerator. It proposes a metric to compare the carbon costs of Higgs factories, balancing physics reach, energy needs, and carbon footprint for both construction and operations, and compares the various Higgs factory proposals within this framework. For the Cool Copper Collider, the compact 8 km footprint and the possibility for cut-and-cover construction greatly reduce the dominant contribution from embodied carbon.