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June 28, 1991
DEADCOLD.ASC
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VANGARD NOTE...
This is an article that was in The Dallas Times Herald Sunday,
June 23, 1991. This article speaks for itself, by showing that
some of our scientists, who don't care to understand new
technology or research it, would rather just call it foo foo
and pack their bags and run.
It is a shame, that we of the U. S. can start new projects and
then give them up to other countries to continue with the
development. SOME DAY WE WILL LEARN!
Ron Barker
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COLD FUSION NO LONGER HOT TOPIC
UTAH SHUTTING DOWN RESEARCH FACILITY
By Steve Wiegand
from McClatahy News Service
SALT LAKE CITY - Some day this month, workers will take down the
impressive lettering on the signs outside the building.
The last microscope will be packed and the last guy out the door
will turn off the lights.
America will no longer have a National Cold Fusion Institute. And
Utah will have erased the last visible reminder of a 27 month
roller-coaster ride that took the state from the top of the
scientific world to the bottom and stunted the growth of an entire
area of research.
"It was more than a little embarrassing for all of us," said Allan
Witt, executive director of the Utah Foundation, a privately funded
think tank that studies social and economic issues. "It's one of
those things we'd like to put behind us."
They were singing a different tune in these parts on March 23, 1989,
when two scientists at the University of Utah announced they had
achieved nuclear fusion in the scientific equivalent of a teacup.
The researchers, chemistry department chairman Stanley Pons and
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chemistry professor Martin Fleischmann, claimed they filled a beaker
with hydrogen-rich "heavy" water, stuck in an electrode made of the
metal palladium and wrapped in platinum wire, shot some electric
current through it and produced nuclear fusion - the energy process
the sun uses - at room temperatures.
It was tantamount to finding a virtually inexhaustible and clean
energy source, and it set off a paroxysm of pie-in-the-sky rhetoric
and test-tube rattling from Tokyo to Texas.
Scientists in Japan, Switzerland, Texas, Brazil and the Soviet Union
rushed to replicate the research. Pons and Fleischmann appeared
before Congress to seek funding for further research. World
palladium prices soared.
The Utah Legislature agreed to spend $4.5 million to finance a cold
fusion institute in a sleek new research park near the university.
State attorneys spent another $500,000 scrambling to protect patent
rights.
"Fusion Buster" sweat shirts, coffee mugs and key rings went on sale
at the university book store. A Mexican restaurant put together a
rum-and-tequila drink, called it the Cold Fusion and despite Utah's
arcane liquor laws sold five dozen of them in two hours.
"If this thing is what they think it is," Gov. Norman Bangerter said
at the time, "It's better than the gold rush."
JOKES AND RIDICULE
Only it wasn't. Almost simultaneous with the rush of enthusiasm came
a wave of doubt from much of the world's scientific community, which
tried in vain to validate the experiment.
"It was never a science story," said Robert Park, director of the
American Physical Society. "It was voodoo."
As evidence mounted that there were problems with the two
scientists' research, the pair became more reclusive, refusing to
discuss their work or share specifics with other scientists. Pons
eventually declined to speak publicly, communicating through his
lawyer or via a fax machine.
And as the "gee-whiz" aspects of the issue wore off, they were
replaced by jokes and ridicule.
"Cold fusion in Utah?" observed comedian Mark Russell. "You can't
even get cold beer in Utah."
Utahans, stung by the criticisms, said the sniping was just so much
scientific sour grapes from "the Eastern establishment."
Within a few months, however, the bloom was off the cold fusion rose
nearly everywhere. Anticipated financial help from the federal
government and from private companies that expressed early
enthusiasm never materialized, and a spokesman for the institute
said there are no prospects of a last-minute bailout to keep the
place going when state funds run out June 30.
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"I don't think there would be any more grants from anywhere even if
they came up with a way to turn tap water into gold dust." said
university news director Larry Weist. "It's over."
Which explains why there were plenty of parking places at the
institute last week, and why the last entry in the visitor log was
dated March 23.
"No one comes up here unless they're from the university and looking
to get some equipment," said a staff member who declined to give his
name.
A review released last month of the institute's work by a panel of
independent scientists praised the institute's work ethic but
concluded it had failed to prove the existence of a cold fusion
process.
"We could have accomplished something with more support and more
time and less controversy," the staff member said, walking past the
lobby's pictorial display of a then-triumphant Pons and Fleischmann
and an announcement of the staff's farewell banquet featuring crab
legs and prime rib.
"It's a damned shame," he said as he loaded boxes into a car truck.
"Sometimes I think the whole thing may have done more harm then
good."
A CRIMP IN RESEARCH
He's not alone in that assessment. Scientists and energy industry
officials say that in the wake of the controversy, funding sources
for cold fusion research have dried up in this country, even though
work is continuing on a relatively large scale in Japan and the
Soviet Union.
"I think it's fair to say that the Utah experience has really put a
crimp in the image of cold fusion research." said David Worledge of
the Palo Alto, Calif. based Electric Power Research Institute, a
group financed by the nation's electric power industry. "Utah
generated a lot of skepticism, and that's difficult to overcome,
especially in tough economic times."
Worledge said EPRI will spend about $3 million to finance cold
fusion research this year. But the Department of Energy, according
to a spokesman, has no plans to spend anything in the area.
"Until there is a convincing argument made by someone that such
research is a valid endeavor," said department spokesman Jeff
Sherwood, "it's doubtful there will be much [financial] support from
here."
But researchers aren't alone in bearing scars from the cold fusion
fallout.
Dominated by the Mormon church's theology and saddled with a sagging
economy, cold fusion was viewed as a means of serving both church
and state.
"The church believes that it has a mission to save the world in
Page 3
practical as well as religious terms," said Thane Robson, an
economics professor at the University of Utah. "This [cold fusion]
held out the hope of an energy supply that would benefit the entire
world."
Robson and others said there was also the hope that out of the
research would come a "Fusion Valley" that would invigorate the
economy and put Utah on the map as something other than the West's
most out-of-step state.
"Utah for a long time has had an insecurity complex," said political
scientist J.D. Williams. "To be a world leader in something as
important as this would have gone a long way toward dealing with
that. It's too bad it didn't work out."
Submitted by: Ronald Barker
Vangard Sciences
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Jerry W. Decker.........Ron Barker...........Chuck Henderson
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