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Conference on Cold Fusion Told of Failure to Find Key Byproducts
By William J. Broad
The New York Times

May 24, 1989

SANTA FE, N.M., May 23 — Scientists at the first Federal conference on low-temperature fusion reported today that they had failed to find some byproducts that had been expected from the nuclear reaction.

While the results did not rule out the possibility of fusion, they add to the accumulating evidence against the claims that huge amounts of excess energy can be produced at low temperatures in a simple laboratory apparatus.

Compounding the generally down-beat mood here, the chemists who announced two months ago that they had discovered the phenomenon, B. Stanley Pons of the University of Utah and Martin Fleischmann of the University of Southampton in England, skipped the conference. In addition, Government scientists said a would-be collaboration with the two had so far failed to materialize.

An official of the University of Utah said that the two scientists were too busy to attend and that potential patent problems had interfered with the Government collaboration.

'Complex and Most Elusive'

In his opening address, Dr. Siegfried S. Hecker, director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, said, ''Cold fusion, if it exists, has turned out to be very complex and most elusive.''

The three-day conference is being sponsored jointly by the Department of Energy and Los Alamos. The laboratory, which is a few miles from here, has tried to harness the conventional hot fusion for decades.

The conference is the most comprehensive of the meetings that have been held since Dr. Pons and Dr. Fleischmann made their startling claim two months ago today.

Unlike earlier meetings, usually limited to scientists from one major discipline, this gathering includes about 500 researchers from many fields. And in contrast to earlier meetings, in which scientists heatedly pressed claims and counterclaims, this gathering has been marked by the measured presentation of more thorough research.

It is expected that scientists attending the meeting will report some signs of a low rate of fusion that would be of purely scientific interest.

Vast Amounts of Power

Nuclear fusion powers the sun, the stars and hydrogen bombs, fusing atoms together rather than breaking them apart, as is done in nuclear reactors. Its controlled release on earth could generate vast amounts of electric power. Usually, nuclear fusion requires extreme heat, whereas the Pons-Fleischmann process is said to occur at room temperature.

But today, evidence for cold fusion was decidedly mixed. John Appleby, director of the center for electrochemistry at Texas A&M University, told the conference that a hunt for the expected byproducts, two types of helium, in the electrodes of the cold-fusion cell had been unsuccessful.

The experiments are fueled by deuterium, a heavy form of hydrogen whose fusion can produce neutrons and helium 3. The helium search was started weeks ago when researchers sought ways to explain the dearth of significant amounts of neutrons.

The search widened to include helium 4 on the theory that the experiments were producing heat in a previously unknown form of fusion whose byproduct was helium 4, the atomic equivalent of helium 3 with an additional neutron. Dr. Pons and Dr. Fleischmann were among the scientists who had speculated that helium 4 might be the exotic byproduct of a poorly understood fusion reaction.

The Search Continues

Dr. Appleby told a news conference that he was ''disappointed'' at not finding the helium, saying it had been sought in electrodes that had produced excess heat. The chemical analysis, he added, was done by the Atomics International division of the Rockwell International Corporation in Canoga Park., Calif.

'The helium 4 reaction so far can be discounted,'' Dr. Appleby said, ''unless proven otherwise.'' Other Texas A&M researchers said, however, that they had not given up looking for helium 4.

And Dr. Appleby noted that his team of Texas A&M researchers had found relatively large amounts of tritium, a possible sign of nuclear fusion.

Other papers presented here today were less optimistic, failing to report any signs of cold fusion. At a news conference, Stanley C. Luckhardt of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said that so far no report had showed that excess heat was the result of nuclear reaction, the implication being that the Pons-Fleischmann phenomenon was chemical in nature.

Collaboration Efforts Pressed

When announced, a collaboration between the two chemists and Federal researchers was seen as a way to clarify quickly the issue of cold fusion. It would have allowed outside observers access to subtle or hidden details of the experiment, helping to verify its correctness or ferret out error.

In contrast, independent scientists can easily have lingering doubts over whether they took all the necessary steps. Such doubts were fueled by the dearth of details released about the experiment and the fact that Dr. Pons and Dr. Fleischmann were interested in patents and the possibility of financial gain.

The collaboration was announced on April 27 in Washington in reponse to skepticism at a hearing of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology. Representative Sid Morrision, a Republican from Washington State, asked Dr. Pons and Dr. Fleischmann why so many other laboratories had failed to get results and whether the two scientists would be willing to work with knowledgeable critics.

''We're doing precisely that,'' Dr. Pons replied. ''We have 19 new experiments being set up. One of those is demonstration of a previously run experiment for Los Alamos. They will come up, make the measurements they want to make on our own system, bring their electrochemists and let the electrochemists go through our method of measuring the thermal output. And when they are satisfied with what they see, then they will take that experiment away.''

Today, Dr. Hecker said Los Alamos had a ''handshake'' agreement with Dr. Pons to make measurements in Utah, but that the university had subsequently raised legal barriers to the collaboration.

Dr. James Brophy, head of research at the University of Utah, said here that Utah lawyers became ''uneasy'' with the collaboration because of possible conflicts over intellectual property rights. He said an agreement in principle had recently been reached with the Department of Energy but not yet been signed.

Dr. Brophy added that Dr. Pons and Dr. Fleischmann were too busy with experiments on cold fusion to attend the Federal conference, but planned to publish new findings to support their claims.

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