The University of Utah press conference was not something Fleischmann and Pons were eager to do. Their hand was forced because one of the reviewers of their Department of Energy grant proposal, Steven E. Jones of Brigham Young University, began using electrolysis in his own research after he learned the details of the Fleischmann-Pons experiment from their proposal. Ryszard Gajewski, project director of the Department of Energy’s Advanced Energy Projects Division, informed Jones of a potential conflict of interest and encouraged him to work collaboratively with Fleischmann and Pons.
Jones initially recommended against funding the Department of Energy proposal, though he later supported the request. Jones also learned that his colleague, Jan Rafelski (University of Arizona), had been selected as a reviewer of the proposal.
According to Jones' logbook, he and Rafelski discussed the Fleischmann and Pons proposal on various occasions. On Dec. 9, 1988, the two discussed filing a patent independently of Fleischmann and Pons for "stimulating nuclear fusion by means of flow of hydrogen isotopes in metal lattice."
On Dec. 10, 1988, Jones wrote, in a draft proposal to the Department of Energy, "We have demonstrated for the first time that nuclear fusion occurs when hydrogen and deuterium are electrolytically loaded into a metallic foil. This remarkable process obviates the need for elaborate machinery to generate and contain plasmas to induce fusion. We are now exploring means to enhance the fusion yield of this new process."
Discussions about possible collaboration as well as conflicts took place between Jones and Fleischmann and Pons during February and early March 1989.
On Feb. 2, 1989, Jones submitted the abstract of a paper he intended to present at the spring meeting of the American Physical Society. It said, “We have also accumulated considerable evidence for a new form of cold nuclear fusion which occurs when hydrogen isotopes are loaded into materials, notably crystalline solids."
On March 6, 1989, Jones informed Fleischmann and Pons that he was going to announce his work at the May 1989 APS meeting. Fleischmann and Pons requested that Jones wait another 18 months, the time Fleischmann and Pons needed to complete their work properly. Jones was unwilling to collaborate, and he insisted on going public in May, with or without Fleischmann and Pons.
Feeling their backs against the wall and suspicious that Jones was trying to claim patent and intellectual priority on the fruits of their labor, Fleischmann, Pons, the University of Utah administrators and their attorneys secretly made plans to go public with their claim as soon as possible. When they learned that their paper had been accepted for publication, they hastily scheduled a press conference.
None of the participants in the University of Utah press conference mentioned the underlying controversy with Jones, but the objective was clear: establish priority for Fleischmann and Pons' intellectual primacy as well as the University of Utah's intellectual property.
No one knew at the time that the Jones effect, although it used electrolysis, palladium and deuterium, was as different from the Fleischmann-Pons effect as night from day. When the dust finally settled, it became clear that Jones' technique offered no hope as a source of energy.
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