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The Cold Fusion Mystery Continues
By Eugene F. Mallove
MIT Tech Talk

April 11, 1990

One Year Later

Cold fusion, whatever it is or isn't, refuses to fade away a year after chemists Martin Fleischmann and B. Stanley Pons made their dramatic and controversial announcement at the University of Utah. Attention recently focused on the First Annual Conference on Cold Fusion held in Salt Lake City (March 28-31), which was sponsored by the National Cold Fusion Institute, an organization funded by the State of Utah Among the provocative findings discussed at the conference were results from a heat measuring device of improved design. Stanford University researchers led by Professor Robert Huggins said that the device proved that significant excess energy generation was occurring that could not be explained by any chemical process within the cell.

Claiming a measurement error of less than one percent, they said that the total electric energy that was monitored going into the device over a few hundred hours was exceeded by the heat measured flowing out in that period in an amount that to them implied a nuclear process going on inside.

About 230 scientists, engineers, basement experimenters, entrepreneurs, and interested citizens gathered to hear more than 40 presentations and panel discussions on cold fusion experiments and theory. Drs. Fleischmann and Pons were present as speakers and participants, and handed out a paper on measurement of excess heat in electrochemical cells.

Severe critics and skeptics were there too, but including Professor of Chemistry John R. Huizenga of the University of Rochester, who cochaired the DOE review panel that reported negatively on cold fusion last November, Dr. Douglas Morrison of CERN, Dr. Richard Petrasso of the MIT Plasma Fusion Center, and MIT Professor Ronald Ballinger of the Departments of Nuclear Engineering and Materials Science and Engineering.

Though most papers dealt with experimental results, a handful of theorists including Associate Professor Peter L. Hagelstein of the MIT Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, presented ideas to explain the physical mechanism of cold fusion (They assumed for the sake of argument that it really has occurred in experiments.): By and large, the theorists have concluded that if heat-producing cold fusion is real, some hitherto unknown collective or cooperative phenomenon among atoms and nuclear particles must be at work to distribute energy throughout bulk matter. Either this occurs deep within the deuterium-infused palladium atomic lattice or in or near the surface of the electrode.

Ordinarily, energetic particles emerge in conventional fusion reactions, but such particlesÑmany now seem to agreeÑdo not account for the heat in cold fusion. Professor Julian Schwinger of UCLA said, "It is clear that cold fusion and hot fusion are qualitatively different phenomena." Then he went out on a limb saying, "It is no longer possible to lightly dismiss the reality of cold fusion."

Evidence: Pro and Con.

Keeping cold fusion alive is a puzzling array of experiments intriguing to those who consider this compelling evidence for a new kind of nuclear process. The same data infuriate those who consider all reports of anomalous "cold fusion" phenomena to be flimsy or at best resting on shaky ground.

There continue to be reports of excess power being generated by electrochemical cells with heavy water, palladium rod cathodes, and the electrolyte lithium deuteroxide (LiOD). A number of researchers claim that this net power is dozens or even hundreds of times greater than what any conceivable chemical process could explain.

Continued reports of such excess heat come not only from the National Cold Fusion Institute, but from Case Western Reserve University, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Stanford University, Stanford Research Institute, and Texas A&M University, among others. The excess power measurements are being made with a variety of techniques now in both open cells and closed cells, in which no matter is allowed to flow in or out. Experimenters have made strenuous efforts to address some of the concerns about possible sources of error that have been voiced in the past year. Skeptics continue to believe that errors are being made in this work.

Some observers of excess power made very strong claims. Professor Ernest B. Yeager of Case Western University said that these results, ". . . will be noted as a decisive turning point in the history of the affair. These results cannot be explained by trivial mathematical errors."

But skeptics and believers alike have been troubled by the lack of a direct connection between the possible excess energy and quantitatively related nuclear reaction products. Reports of radioactive tritium generation continue to come from many laboratories and some groups claim to see bursts of neutrons in these and similar experiments.

The strongest seeming such claims come from Los Alamos National Laboratory. Drs. Edmund K. Storms and Carol L. Talcott say of their tritium results, "We can put aside the question as to whether the tritium is real." Skeptics continue to say that experimental contamination is involved, a charge strongly at odds with what the tritium-finders believe.

Most agree, however, that the tritium and neutronsÑeven if they are being producedÑcan explain only a tiny fraction of the excess energy. Those who think that a new kind of nuclear reaction is going on believe that the end-products may be helium-4 (still unsatisfactorily measured in gas streams from the palladium rods), perhaps deuterium itself masked by the bulk of chemically liberated deuterium gas, or something else. So though they may have ideas, no one claims to have ascertained even what "fuel" is involved.

In response to persistent questioning by Dr. Petrasso about the need to identify reaction products, Dr. Fleischmann agreed and said, "Absolutely so! In order to do this, you must devise a very clean experiment. It is very expensive to do this and is not consistent with our general direction." He said, "You must have an unbiased view as to what might be there. It is a Catch-22. If there is no belief that the effect is there, then there will not be the money to do the experiment."

Dr. Petrasso said to Tech Talk after the conference: "I believe the claims of excess heat as directly attributable to nuclear fusion processes are still without substance.

One of the most annoying factors in the experimental work, many would agree, is the lack of reproducibility at will of many of the results. They can be duplicated, but still not in every case. Some researchers require runs with many cells before getting an observed effect in some cells, others see effects more consistently.

An indication of why this may be happening was provided in numerous electron microscope views of palladium electrodes taken before and after operation. Researchers provided ample evidence that the surfaces of the rods are of great physical and chemical complexity. There are thoughts that the effects, if any, may occur in peculiar localized regions.

The Nature Controversy

The conference was held amidst a furor surrounding several editorials that appeared in the issue of Nature dated March 29. One, titled "Farewell (not fond) to cold fusion," attacked the "cold fusion fuss," saying, ". . . it has licensed magic in the particular sense that reports of remarkable phenomenaÑit could next be unicorns againÑclaim equal credence even when they fly in the face of expectation."

The editorial chided cold fusion theorists, saying that the cold fusion episode ". . . has shown up the frailty of the collective confidence in theoretical science; why else should so many serious people have been bamboozled for so long." The editorial provoked outrage on the part of many at the conference.

In a parallel commentary in the same issue titled, "The Embarrassment of Cold Fusion," Nature associate editor Dr. David Lindley said of Fleischmann and Pons's work, "What was reprehensible a year ago has become absurd." Dr. Lindley ended his remarks with words not often seen in a science magazine: "Would a measure of unrestrained mockery, even a little unqualified vituperation have speeded cold fusion's demise?"

Drs. Fleischmann and Pons shot back with printed comments of their own at the conference. They said, "If Lindley doesn't have the time to come now to Utah to gather information first hand, then why doesn't he at least have the sense to use that well-known shortcut of establishing the scientific credentials of the believers and non-believers, namely the Citation Index?"

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