Thanks to a gift of $4.5 million from Utah taxpayers, the National Cold Fusion Institute has been officially open for one month in the University of Utah's Research Park.
But during that month no national funds have been added to the coffer, no national researchers have been hired. And the temporary secretary who answered the telephone at the center last week was unfamiliar with the name B. Stanley Pons, the fusion guru who ignited the national furor.However U. officials, whose convincing sales pitch netted $5 million in state money ($500,000 has gone to patent attorneys) for fusion research and development, say there's no need for taxpayers to worry.
The institute's progress, they maintain, is right on track.
"Our main goal during these first months is to organize and operate a coherent, organized research program so the results will come out in a more organized fashion," said James Brophy, U. vice president for research.
"The first month is really set-up time. We have had to tear down the experiments (in departments of chemistry, physics, engineering and mines) that were set up in the university and move them to the institute building, so really no technical performance has been achieved yet."
Some staff members have been hired, and one electrochemist was recruited to the institute before the state money was allocated. But the most publicized electrochemist, Pons, is continuing fusion experiments in the basement of the Henry Eyring Chemistry Building. He'll serve only as an adviser to the institute.
Brophy said the U. is talking with two or three other scientists, and six graduate students are expected on staff by month's end.
"But we expect it will be staffed principally by staff from the U. of U. for the first six months while we seek corporate support," Brophy said. "Until the organization really has (the) stability that people will be willing to make a career change to join us, it's likely that people will be coming for various periods of time and retain their connection with their home institution. But as the organization develops we will do permanent recruitment."
Among those positions the U. wants to fill is institute director.
But Hugo Rossi, dean of the College of Science and interim director of the the institute, said efforts to recruit a new director have been hurt by "bad press."
Rossi said officials have considered several people, including Texas A&M University chemist John Bockris, to oversee the institute, but officials decided later that Rossi would stay in his post until the institute was firmly in place.
U. officials have decided to have both a senior scientist and a director - from the corporate world and able to attract corporate donations. Several companies, including General Electric, have expressed interest in the research, but none has provided money, contrary to an Aug. 7 announcement by U. President Chase Peterson.
Brophy said they are in discussions with six private companies, including Westinghouse, regarding fusion funding, and are confident that "by the end of the year a dozen companies will be spending money with us."
The only funding of cold fusion in the country is from the Electric Power Research Institute to a few universities - and the state of Utah.
But Brophy believes that in two to three years there will be enough confirmation that federal money will be available.
"You can count now nearly 20 labs that have confirmed the results in one way or another," Brophy said. He said findings in most of those supporting experiments have yet to be published, and "it's still all mostly word of mouth."
But among those confirming at least some aspects of Utah fusion experiments are IBM, a Japanese lab, the University of Minnesota and Los Alamos National Laboratory scientist Howard Menlove, who recently submitted a paper to Nature Magazine on his neutron findings.
But dozens of other laboratories around the world, including Westinghouse, have found no evidence of fusion in their efforts to confirm the U. experiments.
And, according to Brophy, it's conceivable that the 15 to 20 that have had confirmations "have made similar mistakes, and in three years we'll fold up our tents and go home."