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'Cold Fusion' Research Enjoys a Boom in Utah
The New York Times

August 1, 1989

SALT LAKE CITY, July 31 — Professor B. Stanley Pons has given up trying to convince critics that he and his colleague Martin Fleischmann may have unlocked fusion, the power of the sun, in a laboratory beaker.

But if many physicists have ridiculed the notion of table-top, room-temperature fusion, it has become a boom industry in Utah, where the two chemists enjoy strong support.

The University of Utah, where Dr. Pons teaches, has leased a research center and a Utah congressman is preparing a bill to create a national center here. A private group of boosters has been created to help Dr. Pons and Dr. Fleischmann win over non-believers.

Dr. Pons said months of stinging criticism have taken their toll, leaving him frustrated and weary of meetings with skeptical and sometimes hostile colleagues.

'They Can't Explain Our Results'

''It's a bit depressing, to say the least,'' he said last week. ''They're saying it can't be done, but they can't explain our results.''

Dr. Pons may have given up on the critics, but neither he nor the university is about to give up on cold fusion.

Bolstered by $4.5 million in state funds, the university has signed a lease for an off-campus fusion research center, and Dr. Pons and Dr. Fleischmann are writing a new paper expanding the theory behind their experiments.

''When you know you're right it's a lot easier to move ahead,'' said James Brophy, the university's vice president for research. ''We know the science is there. With this beginning of seed money and with corporate support, we'll define what the possibilities are.'' A Collaboration With G.E. Mr. Brophy said negotiations are under way with the General Electric Company, which has agreed to collaborate with the two scientists. He would not provide further details.

Gov. Norm Bangerter, the state legislature and the congressional delegation are firmly behind the two researchers. Dr. Fleischmann does his research at Britain's University of Southampton. A bill by Rep. Wayne Owens, a Democrat, would create a national fusion research center at the university, which is in his district.

The bill's chances were hurt by a July 12 report by the Energy Department's Energy Research Advisory Board, which concluded there was no convincing evidence that cold fusion works.

The two researchers startled scientists March 23, when they announced that they had sustained a fusion reaction by running an electrical current between electrodes of palladium and platinum immersed in heavy water, water whose hydrogen contains the heavier isotope deuterium.

Dr. Pons said the process had produced far more energy than went into it. If such fusion could be harnessed, it could provide the world with an unlimited, relatively clean supply of energy.

'They Don't Publish'

Fusion involves the combining of atoms and should be safer than fission, or atom-splitting, which has been used to produce nuclear power.

Initial excitement among scientists turned to ire as major laboratories were unable to duplicate the process. The two scientists were openly ridiculed during the annual meeting of the American Physical Society in Baltimore in April.

Dr. Pons said the laboratories that could not achieve fusion had not done their experiments right, adding that he was frustrated by scientists who dismissed his findings without providing details of their own methodology.

''They just say it didn't work and walk away.'' Dr. Pons said. ''They don't publish anything.''

Dr. Pons himself was criticized for announcing his findings at a press conference rather than publishing details of the research in a scientific journal.

''It is tremendously frustrating,'' he said. ''It puts you on your knees because you don't have any idea what they're doing. They don't give you the opportunity. You made a mistake if you say you saw heat. If you see tritium, you're insane.''

Radioactive tritium, another isotope of hyodrogen, can only be produced in a fusion reaction. Dr. Pons claimed tritium was created during his experiment. About a dozen labs around the world also have reported finding tritium in their fusion experiments. Among them was the Los Alamos National Laboratory, which did not confirm that the experiment produced fusion.

Dr. Pons said many scientists who have achieved fusion are holding back their results for fear of public humiliation.

A new private organization, the Fusion Information Center, has started an education campaign aimed at convincing the world that Dr. Pons and Dr. Fleischmann are right.

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