  There is currently a big effort put into the operation and construction of
world class neutron scattering facilities (SNS and SNS-TS2 in the US, J-PARC in
Japan, ESS in Europe, CSS in China, PIK in Russia). On the other hand, there
exists a network of smaller neutron scattering facilities which play a key role
in creating a large neutron scattering community who is able to efficiently use
the existing facilities. With the foreseen closure of the ageing nuclear
research reactors, especially in Europe there is a risk of seeing a shrinking
of the community who would then be able to use efficiently the world class
facilities. There is thus a reflection being conducted in several countries for
the replacement of smaller research reactors with low energy accelerator based
sources. We consider here a reference design for a compact neutron source based
on existing accelerator components. We estimate the performances of various
types of neutron scattering instruments built around such a source. The results
suggest that nowadays state of the art neutron scattering experiments could be
successfully performed on such a compact source and that it is thus a viable
replacement solution for neutron research reactors.
