Are you kidding? This thing is miles across, operates at temperatures colder than space, and is intended to cope with energy equivalent to two aircraft carrier

Are you kidding? This thing is miles across, operates at temperatures colder than space, and is intended to cope with energy equivalent to two aircraft carriers ramming into each other at flank speed. If there's a problem, they can dump all that energy and contain it safely within a few seconds or less. You'll never have a system this powerful that can't be fouled up somehow...whether it's birds with bread or rats chewing the wires or just plain bad luck. But these guys have made the system safe and built it so they can go from "emergency shutdown" to "normal operations" in only three days. The LHC is an amazing piece of engineering with fantastically good fault tolerance.