Supported by funds from a U.S. defense agency, University of Utah scientists have started new experiments intended to demonstrate the practicality of low-temperature fusion as an energy source.
Electrochemist B. Stanley Pons, who 10 months ago announced discovery of the phenomenon called "cold fusion," confirmed Saturday that the advanced experiments are being funded by the Office of Naval Research.Pons said they also had expected funds from the Strategic Defense Initiative's Innovative Science and Technology Office. "But due to recent massive federal cutbacks in basic science, they will not be awarded," he said.
Funding from the military has raised questions concerning the potential wartime applications of the Utah discovery, as fusion byproducts - neutrons and tritium - have potential military applications.
Neutron generators might be used to detect nuclear fissionable materials at long distances, missiles with nuclear payloads, aircraft carrying nuclear weapons and the ignition of small atomic weapons. Tritium is used for hot-fusion reactors, as well as nuclear explosive devices.
Pons said he and co-researcher Martin Fleischmann, of Britain's Southampton University, are only investigating fusion as a source of practical, safe, cheap energy and have "taken adequate safeguards to protect the public from any dangers that could arrive from such particles.
"However, in going on with this work it's clear that in order to protect the patents, we have to consider not only peacetime, day-to-day commercial uses, but also what conceivably might be military uses," he said. "Military devices could easily have applications in the public domain as well."
That fact, Pons said, should concern the U.S. Department of Energy, which is keeping a tight fist on funds for fusion research, while Japan and India are expediting national efforts to move fusion out of the lab into practical use.
Following the recommendations from the Energy Research Advisory Board, Secretary of Energy James D. Watkins recently said he'll "hold the line" on fusion funding. That leaves the Office of Naval Research the only federal agency currently willing to fund efforts of U. fusion scientists.
"The disconcerting thing is that while some people have made such a lightning-bolt judgment that there is no practical use of this research, the Indians and the Japanese have not asked that question at all," Pons said. "They just have made the assumption that there are applications and have moved forward to find out what the applications are. And, they have been successful."
Pons said the Japanese and Indians have publicly reported they have reproducible devices that generate large amounts of neutrons and tritium, which could have both war and peacetime applications.
Pons said of the approximately $600,000 to $700,000 he has received from the Office of Naval Research in the past year, 80 percent since March has gone to fusion research.
Of that, 20 percent to 30 percent is being used for an extensive and expensive set of experiments - involving up to 64 cells - at the U.'s National Cold Fusion Institute in Research Park.
Through the experiments, financed by both state and federal money, researchers are studying all the experimental variables necessary to build an optimal fusion cell.
More innovative, high-energy experiments, involving another 20 cells, are being conducted in Pons' campus laboratories.
With Office of Naval Research money, the electrochemists are also purchasing materials to construct a scaled-up, high-energy device that, if successful, could verify fusion as a practical energy source.