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The state Fusion/Energy Advisory Council Thursday voted to send a letter to University of Utah President Chase N. Peterson insisting that cold fusion researcher B. Stanley Pons return to Utah Nov. 7 to cooperate with a scientific review panel.
During a meeting of the council at the Capitol, Assistant Attorney General Joseph Tesch telephoned Dr. Pons' attorney in North Carolina, C. Gary Triggs. That led to a conference call with Mr.
Tesch, Mr. Triggs and Dr. Pons in which Dr. Pons agreed to return from his undisclosed location in Europe for the review, Mr. Tesch said.
After more than a year of accommodating the elusive chemist and his colleague, Martin Fleischmann, council members indicated they can no longer consent to their spending state money without sharing their scientific results with anyone.
"We feel very strongly about the need for their accountability," said council chairman Raymond L. Hixson.
Dr. Peterson said the university would make an effort to have Dr.
Pons there. "A university has to insist on accountability for its faculty and students and everyone else, including administration," he said. "Therefore, if Dr. Pons and Dr. Fleischmann receive support, they have to make their results accountable."
The two men spent $1 million of $2.1 million in state funds spent on cold fusion research in the fiscal year ended June 30, and they have declined to share their data with other scientists at the National Cold Fusion Institute or publish any scientific papers on it.
"In essence, we've coddled them, quite frankly," said Utah State University Provost Karen Morse, one of the two scientists on the council.
In discussing the content of the letter to Dr. Peterson, the council stopped short of threatening to withdraw their funding if they did not cooperate, but they said the letter should make it clear they will not fund the research blindly.
National Cold Fusion Institute Director Fritz Will, who has been among the two scientists' most fervent defenders against an onslaught of scientific criticism, also expressed disappointment with their lack of cooperation.
Dr. Will said he had made consistent efforts to contact Drs. Pons and Fleischmann to have them attend Thursday's meeting, including a faxed message a week ago to Dr. Pons that called his attendance at the meeting "mandatory."
The chemists' lawyer, Mr. Triggs, told The Tribune Wednesday that Dr. Will had made no attempt to reach Drs. Pons and Fleischmann through him, but Dr. Will said he will not work with a fellow scientist through his attorney.
"I'm not willing to discuss science through a lawyer when the scientists are working for the National Cold Fusion Institute and receiving state funds," Dr. Will said.
An Associated Press report quoted Dr. Fleischmann, who is at his home in Tisbury, England, as saying he was "infuriated" and accused university officials of not acting in good faith in trying to contact him about the meeting. Dr. Will dismissed that as a "tasteless" accusation.
Mr. Triggs told The Tribune Wednesday that Drs. Pons and Fleischmann have been constrained in what they can report by patent considerations on the research, but council member and state science adviser Randy Moon dismissed that because council members have signed a "confidentiality agreement" and represent the state, which is is the ultimate owner of any patents.
Uncertain whether the two men would cooperate, the council voted to go ahead with a planned scientific review on Nov. 7, when four outside experts will be brought to the institute at Research Park for a one-day briefing.
The experts will receive all the data from institute researchers other than Drs. Pons and Fleischmann, Dr. Will said. He hoped Dr.
Pons' indication that he would return for the meeting meant that their studies would also be available to reviewers.
The reviewers will later give a written report of their findings to the university and the fusion council.
The review was prompted by U. College of Science faculty, who were upset by the U. administration's quiet transfer of $500,000 to the institute, which became public in June. The faculty members were most concerned by of the lack of scientific accountability of Drs.
Pons and Fleischmann.
College of Science Dean Hugo Rossi said he believes the review should proceed even without the two chemists in order to protect the integrity of other scientists at the institute, some of whom are in his college. "If some researchers are recalcitrant, I don't think other researchers should suffer for that recalcitrance."
But Council member and USU physicist Wilford Hansen was concerned that a review without the two men could be "a terrible blow" because it would not address the central issue of their accountability.
Other scientists at the institute have been giving talks on their research and cooperating with other scientists.
"It's a no-win situation if they aren't there," he said. "People around the world could make us look like fools."
Dr. Will said the review was crucial to the institute, where efforts to raise outside money have been unsuccessful thus far, and one potential contributor, the Electric Power Research Institute, has held back its commitment pending the review.
"Our chances of receiving external funding are virtually nil without the external review," he said. "We would become the laughingstock of the scientific community . . . if at this point we did not go through with the review."
So far the institute and patent attorneys have spent all but about $1.3 million of the original $5 million state appropriation.
Under the current budget, the rest will be gone by June 30, 1991.
The council had originally planned to discuss budgeting and patent issues at the meeting, but time ran out. The council scheduled another meeting for Nov. 8.