&gt; what is the worst that could happen given the energy involved?<p>The beam alone carries enough energy to melt a tank, that&#x27;s why they need those massive, water-cooled beam dumps.<p>All the magnets combined store 11GJ of energy, which is 2.6 tons of TNT energy equivalent. Considering that they&#x27;re distributed along the accelerator I guess it would result in a spectacular destruction of equipment, but no fireballs on the surface or anything like that.