Broschüre EMFL English

19 Why do the researchers sometimes work at night? The electricity required to generate continuous magnetic fields is so high that often the magnets have to be run at night to prevent brownouts, which would depress the voltage in the surrounding region‘s power grid. Incidentally, the energy genera- ted by the cooling systems is not lost but recovered. In Nijmegen, for example, the nearby Faculty of Science is heated during the winter and cooled during the summer using stored heat from the high magnetic field lab. Normally, scientists working with pulsed-field magnets don’t need to work at night. Since a pulsed magnet experiment only runs for a few milliseconds, it’s a relatively inexpensive affair. Recharging the capacitors that store the energy for the high- performance coils takes but a few minutes – and, in most cases, costs less than 10 euro cents per pulse. To develop magnificent magnets and unique power supplies, innova- tive technology solutions have to be continuously unearthed. In this field, for many years now, the EMFL labs have set new standards – on an international scale. This, of course, is only possible through the close-knit collaboration with a number of regional and international partners from industry and the sciences. The challenges EMFL scientists and technicians are finding them- selves faced with often lie at the cutting edge of technological feasi- bility. It does pay off, though, as the acquired expertise can be used for a number of high-tech applications – say, for forming processes in industry or for a more efficient use of liquid hydrogen fuel in Ariane rockets. In addition, a number of scientific institutions use these developments for their own research projects – in many cases using technologies that were unthinkable only a few years ago. Reaching Out: Being a Driving Force for Science and the Economy

Broschüre EMFL English

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