Particle accelerators like CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC) have made some groundbreaking discoveries for physics, like measuring the spectrum of antimatter or discovering the Higgs boson – but it's hard to tell how exactly that benefits the average Joe/Jill. Now CERN has announced that the LHC will soon be more directly beneficial to local communities, by diverting some of the waste heat from the collider to help heat thousands of nearby homes.

The Large Hadron Collider is the largest machine in the world and needs to operate at temperatures colder than outer space. Needless to say, it produces a huge amount of waste heat. Normally vented away, this excess energy could be an untapped gold mine.

"At CERN, many systems and installations (cryogenics, electronics, ventilation, etc.) are cooled using water: cold water is injected into the cooling circuit and the hot water produced is then collected and cooled by cooling towers, before being reinjected into the circuit," says Serge Claudet, CERN's energy coordinator. "The hot water leaving the circuit can reach a temperature of 30° C (86° F), which is very useful in the context of energy recovery."

So CERN is planning to direct some of that energy towards a new urban development zone – or in French, zone d'aménagement concerté (ZAC). This zone, currently under construction in the nearby region of Ferney-Voltaire, will have a built-in geothermal energy system. Heat from industrial buildings, air conditioning systems and even solar energy from rooftops will be collected and stored in an underground network of water pipes. When needed, this energy can be transferred back to the surface to heat homes and other buildings.