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Scientists Dispute Findings on Fusion
By William J. Broad
The New York Times

May 25, 1989

SANTA FE, N.M., May 24 — Several teams of scientists said at a conference today that their experiments on low-temperature nuclear fusion had produced a few neutrons, suggesting that something curious was going on but nothing that would revolutionize the world's production of energy.

Skeptics immediately challenged the reported observations, saying they were statistical illusions.

Those reporting positive results included teams from the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, Brigham Young University in Utah and the National Institute of Nuclear Physics and Center for Energy Research, both in Italy. The Los Alamos results were the first positive ones from a Federal laboratory working on cold fusion.

Experts here were divided on whether the few identified neutrons were signs of low levels of cold fusion, microscopic pockets of hot fusion or something else. There was agreement, however, that the neutron results failed to back up the cold-fusion claims made two months ago by two chemists, Dr. B. Stanley Pons of the University of Utah and Dr. Martin Fleischmann of the University of Southampton in England.

Results Are Worlds Apart

''The excess heat claimed by the Pons-Fleischmann group is not cold fusion,'' Steven E. Jones of Brigham Young said at a news conference here. While some fusion phenomenon may exist at ''a small but scientifically intriguing level,'' he added, it would probably not be of ''commercial energy interest.''

Emphasizing the gap, Dr. Jones said that if the Brigham Young results represented one dollar then the ''Pons-Fleischmann claims would represent enough dollars to pay off the national debt. It's really worlds apart.''

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, the achievement of nuclear fusion requires extreme heat, whereas Dr. Pons and Dr. Fleischmann said their process occurs at room temperature.

Dr. Jones told the conference today that new experiments he had performed in electrochemical cells were finding more than a hundred neutrons an hour above background radiation. Neutrons can be a byproduct of the fusion of deuterium, a heavy form of hydrogen.

Experiment in a Tunnel

Antonio Bertin of the National Institute of Nuclear Physics in Italy said his team had performed an experiment in a tunnel under a mountain to reduce background radiation to very low levels. Still, he said, the team observed neutrons at about the same rate as Dr. Jones had at Brigham Young.

Howard O. Menlove of Los Alamos reported an experiment in which neutrons were produced by temperature changes in metals, not by sending electricity through them, the usual method. He reported bursts of up to 40 neutrons in less than a second, and lower rates over time that were similar to those Dr. Jones said he had observed.

Not all scientists here were persuaded that these very low neutron results were real. Moshe Gai, a physicist at Yale University, challenged many of the neutron observations, saying they were not, when analyzed statistically, significantly above the level of the background radiation.

''My job in this conference is to keep everybody honest,'' Dr. Gai told the crowd of hundreds of scientists.

Later, Dr. Jones agreed to take his apparatus to Yale to see if significant numbers of neutrons can be recorded there.

The three-day conference is sponsored jointly by the Department of Energy and the Los Alamos laboratory, which has tried to harness hot fusion for decades. About 500 scientists are attending the meeting, which ends Thursday.

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