<P> The size of the LHC constitutes an exceptional engineering challenge with unique operational issues on account of the amount of energy stored in the magnets and the beams . While operating, the total energy stored in the magnets is 10 GJ (2,400 kilograms of TNT) and the total energy carried by the two beams reaches 724 MJ (173 kilograms of TNT). </P> <P> Loss of only one ten - millionth part (10) of the beam is sufficient to quench a superconducting magnet, while each of the two beam dumps must absorb 362 MJ (87 kilograms of TNT). These energies are carried by very little matter: under nominal operating conditions (2,808 bunches per beam, 1.15 × 10 protons per bunch), the beam pipes contain 1.0 × 10 gram of hydrogen, which, in standard conditions for temperature and pressure, would fill the volume of one grain of fine sand . </P> <P> With a budget of € 7.5 billion (approx . $9 bn or £ 6.19 bn as of June 2010), the LHC is one of the most expensive scientific instruments ever built . The total cost of the project is expected to be of the order of 4.6 bn Swiss francs (SFr) (approx . $4.4 bn, € 3.1 bn, or £ 2.8 bn as of Jan 2010) for the accelerator and 1.16 bn (SFr) (approx . $1.1 bn, € 0.8 bn, or £ 0.7 bn as of Jan 2010) for the CERN contribution to the experiments . </P> <P> The construction of LHC was approved in 1995 with a budget of SFr 2.6 bn, with another SFr 210M toward the experiments . However, cost overruns, estimated in a major review in 2001 at around SFr 480M for the accelerator, and SFr 50M for the experiments, along with a reduction in CERN's budget, pushed the completion date from 2005 to April 2007 . The superconducting magnets were responsible for SFr 180M of the cost increase . There were also further costs and delays owing to engineering difficulties encountered while building the underground cavern for the Compact Muon Solenoid, and also due to magnet supports which were insufficiently strongly designed and failed their initial testing (2007) and damage from a magnet quench and liquid helium escape (inaugural testing, 2008) (see: Construction accidents and delays). Because electricity costs are lower during the summer, the LHC normally does not operate over the winter months, although exceptions over the 2009 / 10 and 2012 / 2013 winters were made to make up for the 2008 start - up delays and to improve precision of measurements of the new particle discovered in 2012, respectively . </P>

How much did it cost to build the lhc
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