Problems May Lead to Cuts in Collider Project

Plans for the superconducting super collider are likely to be scaled back because of technical problems that may cause its costs to jump by up to 30%, or nearly $2 billion, U.S. officials and independent scientists say.

The technical troubles recently caused the scientific managers of the controversial project--which is aimed at expanding knowledge about the basic nature of matter without any hope of immediate practical application--to propose extensive design modifications.

But angry Energy Department officials have responded that the program is unlikely to win a substantial increase in its promised $5.9-billion budget and should instead be “built to cost,” the sources said last week.

Several officials, who asked not to be identified, said that this preliminary decision by the Energy Department probably will require cuts in the power and size of the collider--modifications that may, in turn, raise new questions about the project’s technical merit, jeopardizing its political future and thousands of associated jobs.

Congress recently approved a $225-million down payment on the collider’s construction over an eight-year period at Waxahachie, Tex.

Beams of protons are to be accelerated in a 53-mile tunnel and crashed together so scientists can examine the interaction of subatomic particles and test theories about the building blocks of matter and the origin of the universe.

Deputy Energy Secretary W. Henson Moore said in an interview that project managers were told that “either we’re going to build it for the figure of 5.9 (billion dollars) or we’re not going to build it at all.”

Moore said that “we know we can’t get the additional money in these times of tight money, and we simply can’t go back to the Congress six months after promising it would be one amount and tell them it’s going to be something else.”

Moore said he is uncertain about whether the collider plans will be scaled back, because some of the proposed changes associated with added costs may have been gold plating.

But the scientists involved say that many of the changes were needed just to meet--not exceed--the original specifications, and “building to cost” will doubtless require some technical sacrifices.

Roy Schwitters, director of the Dallas laboratory created to supervise the collider’s construction, said his proposed changes were “not due to flaws in the previous (design) work, but to advances in the state-of-the-art technology” that scientists would like to see incorporated in the collider.