A conference that University of Utah officials say they've organized to restore America's faith in cold nuclear fusion could instead put fusion researchers back in the hot seat.
In addition to members of the so-called "fusion fraternity" - scientists who've recorded positive results - attendees will include the most outspoken critics of the Utah-born phenomenon.Among them will be John R. Huizenga, co-chairman of a U.S. Department of Energy committee that nixed any major new DOE grants for fusion research.
Huizenga, of the University of Rochester, said "curiosity" is the reason he'll attend the First Annual Conference on Cold Fusion.
The conference, expected to attract up to 200 international researchers, will be held March 29-31 at the U.'s National Cold Fusion Institute. It's the first scientific conference on cold nuclear fusion held since a negative report on the phenomenon, issued by the DOE's Energy Research Advisory Board, was accepted by Energy Secretary James Watkins.
Fusion funding nixed Huizenga's committee, which found no conclusive evidence that cold fusion exists or could ever produce usable power, said the DOE should not create any large new programs or centers for cold fusion research. However, the committee supported modest funding through current grant programs to help resolve some of the conflicting contentions about the phenomenon, which was announced a year ago by U. electrochemists B. Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann.
Huizenga was personally critical of Pons and Fleischmann - stating publicly that they were not careful enough in their research. He also showed ERAB members a chronology maintaining that Pons and Fleischmann had broken agreements with Brigham Young University about when to release their findings, and reporting too quickly before verifying work.
Scientific circus?
Why then is Huizenga coming to Utah, and who invited him?
Many of the conference presenters want to know. Their concern is that because the naysayers are merely attending - but not giving papers - the scientific conference could turn into a circus.
Pam Fogle, acting director of public relations for the University of Utah, said invitations were sent out last fall by the National Cold Fusion Institute, then directed by Hugo Rossi, dean of the College of Science.
"Dr. Rossi went to great length to identify all of those who would have an interest in the conference - both pro and con - so letters were sent out early in the fall, and advertisements were placed in approximately a half dozen journals to reach those who we might not have reached through personal correspondence," she said.
Fusion critics attending
Fogle said Rossi wants "a balanced conference were everyone's ideas can be shared. It's an open forum so different ideas can be exchanged."
Rossi last week said he was disappointed more critics weren't coming.
Apparently many have responded since then.
Douglas Morrison, a scientist at the Center for European Nuclear Research in Geneva, Switzerland, known for his negative newsletter on cold fusion, will be in attendance. He received his invitation within the past two weeks.
Richard Petrasso, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Nathan S. Lewis, California Institute of Technology, have also registered.
Lewis, one of the most hostile critics of Pons and Fleischmann, openly challenged the local scientists before 1,600 members of the Electrochemical Society at its 175th meeting last May.
Petrasso and Lewis have put their critiques in writing in Nature Magazine.
Huizenga said he also received an official invitation to attend the conference and is coming mainly to try to understand what the latest results are."
"I think the situation at the moment is not very different from when we wrote the final report; as far as I know there is not very much new. I simply want to listen to what people claim to have done in the last several months," he said in a telephone interview. "I know that since writing the report, one of two of the people we thought were positive are now negative."
Huizenga said researchers at the University of Minnesota, for example, have "turned around from a positive to a negative point of view.
"I don't think there are very many people who were negative and are now positive," he said. "So I think the situation is about the same as it was when we finished our report."