Friday, 26 March 2004 Media Statement

Synchrotron contract for NZ company

Research, Science and Technology Minister Pete Hodgson today welcomed the news that New Zealand company CMS Alphatech has won a $6 million contract to design and supply more than 200 giant magnets for an Australian Synchrotron under construction in Victoria.

The Synchrotron project is estimated to cost $206 million and is due for completion in 2007. The Premier of Victoria, John Brumby, describes it as "Australia’s most exciting scientific infrastructure project in decades".

“CMS Alphatech's success against stiff competition from Europe, Russia and China shows New Zealand is up there with the best in componentry for frontier research and development,” Mr Hodgson said.

The magnets for the Australian Synchrotron’s storage ring will be up to 1.7 metres long and weigh up to 7.5 tonnes. They will be used to force electrons into a circular path, creating the intense beams of synchrotron light which can be used to study the composition of matter.

Synchrotrons are invaluable tools for groundbreaking research in biological and life sciences, mining and geoscience, and for manufacturing pharmaceuticals, new age materials and micro machines.

CMS Alphatech has been supplying the research and medical physics communities in Australia for more than 15 years. The magnets will be built at Buckley Systems in Auckland, which has been manufacturing electromagnets for particle accelerators since the 1970s.

Together CMS Alphatech and Buckley Systems have designed and produced magnets for the Australian National University’s particle accelerator and other installations in the USA, Europe and Japan.

ENDS

© Scoop Media

Gordon Campbell: On the Sony cyber attack

Given the layers of meta-irony involved, the saga of the Sony cyber attack seemed at the outset more like a snarky European art film than a popcorn entry at the multiplex.

Yet now with (a) President Barack Obama weighing in on the side of artistic freedom and calling for the US to make a ‘proportionate response’quickly followed by (b) North Korea’s entire Internet service going down, and with both these events being followed by (c) Sony deciding to backtrack and release The Interview film that had made it a target for the dastardly North Koreans in the first place, then ay caramba…the whole world will now be watching how this affair pans out. More>>