Einstein Telescope, President Solinas: “Sardinia is an ideal place for high-tech projects, our island can become a leading area in Italy”

Cagliari, 11 March 2023 – “Sardinia is the ideal place to host high-tech projects and has what it takes to become a leading area in Italy. We are increasingly willing to continue to actively support, with decision and firmness, Lula’s candidacy to host the Einstein Telescope, strengthened by the support of the institutions, which have listened to the appeals of the Region and fully support us, and above all aware of the characteristics of the place that make it the ideal place. It is for all these reasons that we continue without fearing the competition”. This was stated by the President of the Region, Christian Solinas, who once again underlined the importance of the project “for Sardinia, for Italy and for the whole of Europe”, he focused on the characteristics of the Sos Enattos mine, which will host the gravitational wave observatory.

In competition with the Sardinian site is that of Limburg, on the border between Holland, Belgium and Germany, but the area does not have physical and environmental characteristics comparable with Sardinia.

The systems must in fact be built in regions with low seismic noise of both natural (seismic activity) and anthropic (human, industrial, production, transport activities) origin. Not only that: the geology of the site must allow for the stable construction of large caves, which are not subject to the presence of underground water.

Coming to our Island, the geology of Sardinia is extremely stable and the local seismic activity is almost non-existent; the rock in the Lula region consists mainly of very hard and stable granites, an excellent foundation for building underground infrastructure. The area also has one of the lowest population densities in Europe, promising very low anthropic noise.

“The characteristics of Sardinia – continued President Solinas – therefore make the island the optimal region for the construction of ET and the Lula site, in particular, the best choice. All the initiatives that the Region will support from now on will start from this consideration to keep attention high on the need to start a project in our land, for the benefit of Italy, of course, but above all of Sardinia and the Sardinians who from this extraordinary development opportunity will benefit”, concluded the President.