This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 1991, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
On March 23, 1989, B. Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann announced they had discovered cold nuclear fusion.
Two years and nearly $5 million later, state and University of Utah officials still don't have an idea what the two scientists have accomplished and what it is worth.
As a result, officials say the current review of the two scientists' work by Utah State University scientist Wilford Hansen will be crucial to assessing the value of patent applications that have cost the state $500,000 thus far, with another $250,000 expected this year.
"It's the most bewildering thing I've ever been involved with," said Raymond L. Hixson, who was appointed by Gov. Norm Bangerter to chair the Fusion/Energy Advisory Council about two weeks after the cold fusion announcement.
"It started off with Pons and Fleischmann making a premature announcement that erupted across the nation," Mr. Hixson recounted.
"They were really beat up outside the university."
Then came problems from within the university from faculty members who "didn't want to be judged as kooks by their peers," he said, and that produced a backlash from the scientists' attorney and threats of lawsuits.
"They became, I think, more and more paranoid," Mr. Hixson said.
"That really obscures the picture of whether they have really been doing any significant work."
University officials had to negotiate an agreement with the two chemists to turn over their data to Dr. Hansen for a review. Dr.
Hansen has declined to comment until his report is finished in the next couple of weeks.
Mr. Hixson said he does not place blame on the chemists. "It's hard to say that because of the circumstances of how this came about."
University of Utah President Chase Peterson said determining what Pons and Fleischmann did has been "complicated by egregious departures from scientific objectivity on all sides of the controversy."
He called the Hansen review "something all parties should have pursued from the beginning," but said it took so long because of the competing interests of open science and patent secrecy.
- Dr. Peterson said as university president he has no right to tell the scientists what they should release, but he believes the state, as financial supporters of the work, has the right to hold them accountable.
The attorney for the two men, Gary Triggs, blames the troubles on "saboteurs" at the university, especially National Cold Fusion Institute director Fritz Will, and on a news media "that finds bad news sells papers better than the truth."
Mr. Triggs said in a telephone interview from his North Carolina office that his clients have been falsely labeled in the press as charlatans and frauds. "These aren't scientists who are making a lot of money. . . . All they have ever asked is to be left alone and do their science."
He is convinced the Hansen review will be a positive one, but says it won't stop their detractors.
Mr. Triggs also said Drs. Pons and Fleischmann remain completely convinced they have made a breakthrough. "I think when the smoke clears you will see two fine scientists who will be taking a trip to Sweden to receive their prize," Mr. Triggs said. " . . . Victory is much sweeter when the trip is harder. They are in this for the long run."
Neither Dr. Pons nor Dr. Fleischmann spend much time in Utah these days. Dr. Fleischmann has been advised that his unpaid research professorship will be up for a vote by other chemistry department professors in April.
"It is only fair that I tell you that under the present circumstances and the prevailing atmosphere surrounding cold fusion at the university, it is rather uncertain that such an appointment would be favorably acted upon by our senior faculty," states a Feb.
4 letter from chemistry chairman Peter J. Stang to Dr.
Fleischmann.
Dr. Stang said Dr. Fleischmann, who spends most of his time at his home in England, wrote a reply accusing him of trying to "close the file" on cold fusion, but Dr. Stang said he was just advising him of the situation. "It's impossible to predict how 20 people will vote."
Dr. Peterson said more than 100 research faculty members go through similar votes every year. He also said Dr. Pons, who agreed in January to give up his tenured professorship for a research appointment, will face a similar vote next year.
Mr. Triggs would not say when Dr. Pons was last in town. "Dr.
Pons is back and forth to Utah. He could be there all the time but the effort in Utah has become so sabotaged that it has become a bad joke."
Mr. Triggs said Dr. Will, who came to the institute in February 1990 with Drs. Pons and Fleischmann's blessing, has repeatedly interfered with his clients' work and has been derelict in finding outside funding for the research.
"It was very clear when I came here that the whole issue of cold fusion work in Utah rested on the findings of the two inventors," Dr. Will replied. "To the extent, then, that the inventors made it impossible to make it clear to potential investors the validity of those claims, the inventors made it impossible to pull in money from external sponsors."
While the institute is expected to close in June for lack of funding, the financial commitment to cold fusion patents could go on for years. Patent lawyers estimated the process of securing patents could take up to five years.
The Legislature in the final hours of its last session added language switching $250,000 of the remaining $800,000 from research to legal work. Deputy Utah Attorney General Joseph Tesch said that was the estimate to defend patent applications over the next year, and the original $500,000 earmarked for legal costs has been spent.
Dr. Peterson said the agreement the university makes with all its inventor/professors requires the university to pay costs of pursuing and protecting their patents or surrender the university's royalty rights to the inventor.