Plans to construct the world`s most powerful source of X-rays at Argonne National Laboratory were dealt a severe blow this week by a congressional committee that wiped out $6 million in startup funds for the machine.
The device, called the Advanced Photon Source, is expected to revolutionize materials research. Scientists, businessmen and politicians also were counting on the facility to generate high-technology industry and jobs in Illinois, but those hopes may now be dashed.
The device is one of three big science projects that could be delayed or scuttled as a result of the committee`s budget cutbacks. The others are the multibillion atom smasher called the superconducting super collider, which Illinois officials hope will be built near the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory west of Chicago, and a fusion machine planned by Princeton University in New Jersey.
``If it (the X-ray device) doesn`t get funded now, everything will be up for grabs,`` said Alan Schriesheim, director of Argonne, located 25 miles southwest of Chicago in Du Page County. ``There is a very real possibility that the project is in jeopardy.``
The device uses new technology pioneered at Argonne to produce X-ray beams 100 billion times more powerful than any X-ray tubes. The powerful beams act like extremely brilliant lights that illuminate things normally hidden from human view, including detailed body processes and the activity that occurs among molecules involved in materials and chemical reactions.
So promising is the new technology that Japan and a consortium of European nations are racing to build similar machines.
The device, which would be used by hundreds of scientists from all over the country each year, is projected to cost $456 million and create more than 1,500 construction and related jobs.
``This project is important for making new medical advances and for our national competitiveness . . . and the Department of Energy was committed to building it at Argonne,`` Schriesheim said.
The House Appropriations Committee eliminated almost all funds for new projects when it approved a $17.8 billion 1989 spending bill. Rep. Tom Bevill (D., Ala.) said the unusual action to eliminate funding for new projects was part of the agreement between President Reagan and Congress last fall as a first step toward balancing the budget.
Schriesheim said the only hope of putting construction of the device back on track is if the Senate Appropriations Committee approves $6 million in initial construction funds and the House committee agrees to restore the funds in a compromise session.