Massive number of defects keeps collider at half power

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The success in colliding protons marks a remarkable comeback for CERN, but the lab is still only halfway back to where it wanted to be: Only a year and a half ago, the first attempt to start the collider ended with an explosion that left part of its tunnel enveloped in frigid helium gas and soot when an electrical connection between two of the powerful magnets that steer the protons vaporized. A subsequent investigation revealed that the collider is riddled with thousands of such joints, the result of what Lucio Rossi, head of magnets at CERN, said stemmed from a “lack of adequate risk analysis” in a recent report in the online journal Superconductor Science and Technology.

This is interesting. At last I have found out why they are closing the thing again. Right now they are taking a risk at half power, just to show up the Americans. Those perfidious French would do anything to anything to twig the Yanks! :)