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Utah, Thinking of Fusion, Dreams of Gold
By William E. Schmidt
The New York Times

April 21, 1989

SALT LAKE CITY, April 18 — It may not have anything to do with nuclear physics, but scientists claiming a historic breakthrough in fusion research here have produced one measurable reaction: they have jolted the state's political and business leadership into overdrive.

In the last four weeks, Utah legislators, state officials, members of Congress and newspaper editorialists have rushed to describe the table-top fusion experiments at the University of Utah as a once-in-a-century scientific discovery that might mean wealth, fame and glory for the state.

''If this thing is what they think it is,'' Gov. Norman H. Bangerter told reporters, ''it's better than the gold rush.''

Many scientists around the country remain skeptical about the findings, but the Utah Legislature is taking no chances. Meeting in a special session earlier this month, with officials conjuring up visions of a ''Fusion Valley'' beside the Great Salt Lake, lawmakers appropriated $5 million in seed money for commercial applications of fusion technology.

'An Incredible Opportunity'

The State Attorney General said Utah would spend half a million dollars to nail down patents to protect any commercial use of the technology. And at the University of Utah, administrators have dreams of a Cold Fusion Research Institute; they would like Congress to give it money and Dr. James C. Fletcher, a Utah native who recently stepped down as head of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, to run it.

Is Utah getting carried away with what is still an unproven scientific breakthrough? ''That is a difficult question to answer because the answer is yes,'' said Ian Cumming, an international financier who is a member of the board that governs the state's colleges and universities.

But Mr. Cumming, who has likened the fusion breakthrough to the discovery of fire, said the state had no alternative. ''This is an incredible opportunity that could, if it is true, benefit Salt Lake City, Utah and the rest of the world,'' he said. ''If that be boosterism, so be it.''

Utah is not the first state to demonstrate a visceral link between politics and science. When scientists at the University of Houston made a breakthrough in superconductivity research in 1987, for example, local boosters moved swiftly. The Texas Legislature rushed to establish the Texas Center for Superconductivity at the school and appropriated $4 million for further research into materials that could conduct electricity without resistance. A private foundation in Lufkin, Tex., put up $1 million to endow a chair for Paul Chu, who made the discovery, and Houston civic leaders voted him into the city's Hall of Fame.

Seductive Prospect of Money

The excitement in Utah, like that in Texas, has a lot to do with the possibility of vast sums of money, a seductive thought in a state that has seen hard times because of slumps in agriculture, mining and oil production.

What is tantalizing is the prospect of hundreds of millions of dollars flowing into the state and the university through patent royalties if the fusion result of last month can be marketed commercially.

But R. Thayne Robson, head of the Bureau of Economic and Business Research at the University of Utah, said the commercialization of the state's fusion research was in the distant future.

''This thing has possibilities,'' said Mr. Robson, who then added playfully, ''But there is going to be a lot of confusion about fusion before we see any infusion of big money.''

This is not the first time Utah has attracted national attention because of a scientific discovery. In 1982, the University of Utah was at the center of research on artificial hearts, and reporters flocked here when Dr. William C. DeVries implanted the Jarvik-7, a made-in-Utah artificial heart, in the chest of Barney Clark.

Mr. Clark died 112 days later, and the technology never did realize its earlier promise as a permanent substitute for the living heart. Although the Jarvik heart is still manufactured here, Dr. DeVries has moved on to Kentucky.

State Rival in Research

The two researchers who made the fusion discovery, B. Stanley Pons, chairman of the chemistry department at the University of Utah, and Martin Fleischmann, a Briton, have been lionized in the state. But their findings have been greeted skeptically by scientists around the world, even as those scientists try to duplicate the Utah results.

Critics say those results defy the laws of nuclear physics. The Utah researchers said they used a jar of water at room temperature and an electrical circuit to produce four times the energy that the experiment consumed.

But Dr. Chase N. Peterson, president of the university, says that is not the issue. ''Either we have some new science here we don't understand,'' he said, ''or we have got a hot box that boils water.'' In either case, he said, ''we've got something very important.''

Mr. Cumming, the university trustee, said a lot of the criticism was sour grapes from what he called ''the Eastern fusion establishment.''

''Look at all the dollars that have been pumped into fusion research, and it has yet to produce a net positive reaction,'' he said. ''And then along comes someone out in Utah who does it in a Tupperware bowl.''

Like others, Mr. Cumming is savoring Utah's role as a kind of scientific David, bowling over the Eastern Goliaths. It is an especially satisfying thought among those self-conscious about the state's exaggerated external image as an austere, somewhat forbidding place dominated by the Mormon Church.

Even so, not all the doubters are from outside the state. Physicists at the University of Utah have criticized the work of their chemistry colleagues. And an even sharper reaction has come from the campus of Brigham Young University, 40 miles away. Dr. Steven E. Jones, a physicist at Brigham Young, said he had been working on a similar experiment since 1986. And he asserts that scientists at the University of Utah had agreed earlier this year to collaborate on experiments and publish their work jointly.

The next thing Mr. Jones knew, he was reading in the newspaper about a fusion breakthrough at the University of Utah.

University of Utah officials said that there had been talks between the two schools but that there had been no collaboration and the experiments were totally different.

For his part, Mr. Peterson says he views all the ferment as a sign of vitality. ''Some have painted it as a kind of hysterical boosterism,'' he said. ''But if this thing has merit, we want to be in a position to do something about it. That's only prudent.''

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