As far as the tile roofs, they last a long time. It isn't the tile that is the issue, it's the felt (or paper) underneath that gets replaced. Mine is 25 years old, has not been replaced yet. Some neighbors have had theirs redone, but many have not as yet. 04-06-2011, 12:00 AM.
Particle Accelerators Could Be Used to Produce Energy (and Plutonium) Particle accelerators, which are not renowned for their real-world applications, could in fact be used to produce energy, according to a 34-year-old research paper that resurfaced this week.
The work is all part of an $8 billion project at the international physics laboratory called CERN. At its heart will be an enormously powerful particle accelerator capable of smashing subatomic particles together, reproducing the energies that existed a fraction of a second after the big bang.