In the p‐process production of180Tam, not only photo‐production cross sections of181Ta(&ggr;,n)180Ta but also photo‐destruction cross sections of180Tam(&ggr;,n)179Ta are needed. We propose to measure the destruction cross section with high‐energy synchrotron radiation generated from a 10 tesla super‐conducting wiggler at SPring‐8. © 2004 American Institute of Physics