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Letter to the Editor: Cold Fusion Slips Away
The New York Times

March 9, 1993

To the Editor:

"An Idealist's New Task: To Revamp Health Care," your otherwise excellent Feb. 26 profile of Ira C. Magaziner, President Clinton's senior adviser for policy development, does a great disservice to him in belittling his prophetic testimony to Congress on cold fusion in 1989.

Mr. Magaziner was right in 1989. As he warned and a Science Times article last Nov. 17 confirms, Japan has made the quest for cold fusion commercialization a priority, while support in the United States lags.

The obsolete Department of Energy negative report on cold fusion of 1989 doomed the United States to inaction, except for the Electric Power Research Institute and a handful of other companies. The Energy Department spends no money on cold fusion research, and the Patent Office -- following Energy's line -- refuses to grant patents to scores of inventors. Instead, for more than $500 million a year the Energy Department pursues a doomed quest for commercial hot fusion power in 2050. Cold fusion applications will emerge this decade.

EUGENE F. MALLOVE
Bow, N.H., Feb. 26, 1993

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