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SCP-1920 Safe ~ medium confidence
SCP-1920
Expected annual
$440K
One-time setup
$147K
Annual recurring
$438K
Personnel
3
Initial one-time setup is modest (~$150k) driven by containment construction, instrumentation, and contingency readiness; recurring annual costs (~$438k) are dominated by staff wages and an active R&D/monitoring program.
🏗️ One-Time Capital Costs Total: $147K
Decommission Remediation One Time $28K
[#25] One-time decommission/remediation/destruction budget in case of containment termination or secure disposal.
Facilities $25K
[#1] Kou-electrical containment chamber construction including EMI shielding, grounding, viewing port, and institutional standards compliance.
Initial Research And Lab Setup $22K
[#4, #6] Precision DAQ/oscilloscope/current probes and RF/spectrum test equipment required for initial characterization (includes high-bandwidth DAQ/oscilloscope and spectrum analyzer).
Contingency Emergency One Time $20K
[#17] One-time budget for hazmat readiness, emergency response setup, and initial emergency procedures/equipment.
Materials Forensics One Time $10K
[#7] Polymer identification, paint/charcoal/clay analysis, wood species ID and dating, and trace element testing fees.
Public Cover One Time $10K
[#20] One-time cover-story / legal / permitting costs related to sensitive recovery or initial public-facing mitigation.
Audio Video Capture One Time $8K
[#5] High-speed camera, condenser mic, local storage and initial archival hardware for capturing the 1200 r/min events and vocalizations.
Equipment $7K
[#2, #3] One-time equipment: variable-speed fan and vibration-isolating mount (~#2), and power-handling hardware (dummy loads, surge arrestors, isolation transformers, switchgear) (~#3).
Per Additional Instance Upfront $6K
[#24] Incremental one-time upfront cost per additional discovered instance (additional fan, mount, monitoring channel, minor fixtures).
Rf Consulting Initial $4K
[#6] Expert RF engineering consulting/testing fees associated with initial satellite-dish/spectrum testing.
Transport Recovery One Time $3K
[#12] Secure transport package and contingency for local recovery or courier for initial relocation (budget for a single non-extreme move).
Containment Mounts One Time $2K
[#13] Custom non-conductive mount, anti-static handling tools, vibration-isolation platform, and handling fixtures.
Archival Ingest One Time $2K
[#21] One-time archival ingestion, database entry and indexing of audio/video/logs.
🔄 Annual Recurring Costs Total: $438K/yr
Staff Wages $280K/yr
[#8, #9] Annual salaries and benefits for research staff (1 FTE Research Scientist + 1 FTE Research Engineer ~ $200k) and allocated security coverage (1 FTE ~ $80k).
Research And Monitoring $67K/yr
[#4, #5, #16, #18, #19, #21, #23] Ongoing monitoring software/licenses, cloud storage/transcription, secure backups/cybersecurity, R&D experimentation budget, recurring expert consulting, archival curation, and humidity/preservation checks.
D Class Program $50K/yr
[#10] Costs to maintain a single D-Class subject for testing (recruitment/medical/supervision) on an annual basis.
Administrative Overhead $12K/yr
[#11] Administrative time for approvals, Level-4 signoffs, documentation, compliance checks and review board activities.
Facilities Maintenance $8K/yr
[#3, #15] Annual facility allocation (space, HVAC, climate control) and periodic inspection/replacement of power-handling hardware (~$200–$500/yr).
Contingency And Training $8K/yr
[#17] Annual training, emergency drills, medical refresher and emergency-response readiness refreshers.
Insurance And Liability $6K/yr
[#22] Increased insurance premiums and liability coverage for experiment work and human-subject risk.
Cover Story And Legal $3K/yr
[#20] Annual retainer / legal / local relations costs to maintain cover story, permits, and address inquiries.
Logistics And Transport $2K/yr
[#12] Annual budget for occasional transport/recovery tasks, permits, and minor relocation logistics.
Per Additional Instance Recurring $1K/yr
[#24] Incremental recurring cost per additional instance (additional monitoring channel, fan electricity, staff time).
Supplies And Consumables $600/yr
[#14] Consumables and small parts (rubber bands, adhesives, spare polymer pieces, cleaning supplies, replacement fan parts).
Fan Power And Replacement $200/yr
[#2] Electricity and amortized replacement cost for the constant wind fan (estimated per-instance energy and periodic replacement).
⚡ Cost Scenarios
📊 Baseline (baseline) $438K/yr
94.0% probability / year
Normal year with steady monitoring, scheduled experiments, and no major incidents.
no breaches routine experiments normal equipment replacement
🚨 Minor Incident $448K/yr
4.0% probability / year +$10K vs baseline
Localized equipment failure or small containment incident requiring repairs, medical checks, and data recovery.
fan or power-handling failure D-Class minor injury/medical data loss requiring recovery
🚨 Major Recovery Operation $518K/yr
2.0% probability / year +$80K vs baseline
Discovery or need to recover additional instances or emergency remote retrieval requiring airlift/contractors and accelerated scaling of containment.
multiple new instances discovered remote/helicopter recovery large-scale transport and legal costs
👥 Personnel 3 total
Role Count Notes
Research Scientist 1 [#8] Senior research lead responsible for experiments, monitoring, and report authorship (portion of the $150k–$250k research budget).
Research Engineer 1 [#8] Technical/engineering support for instrumentation, DAQ, and experiment builds (included in research staff budget).
Security Officer / MTF Agent 1 [#9] Dedicated security coverage for access control, tamper checks, and escort during testing (allocated portion of security budget).
📋 Confidence Notes
Analyst notes provide detailed line-item ranges for nearly all costs, enabling mid-range estimates; uncertainty remains in frequency of discovery of additional instances and the scale of ad-hoc recovery operations, so confidence is medium.
← SCP-1919 ↑ All SCPs SCP-1921 →