Cold fusion research presented at an Italian conference, which included a presentation from fusion czar B. Stanley Pons and the former director of the University of Utah's National Cold Fusion Institute, shows promising results, an organizer says.
"The opinion of the large majority of the participants of the Second Annual Conference on Cold Fusion is that the scientific reality of cold fusion has finally been established and that the impact of these phenomena in the future of pure science and technology is likely to be very deep," G. Pre-parata, an Italian scientist and co-chairman of the conference's advisory committee, told the Deseret News Monday.After a two-year chase, cold fusion experiments are less of a priority in Utah, due to budgetary problems. In fact, the U. institute - once hyped as a international gathering place for fusion research - was recently closed when $5 million approved by the Utah Legislature for patents and fusion research ran out and outside funds could not be obtained.
But research outside the United States is progressing rapidly, as evident by reports given by some 50 scientists who gathered June 29 through July 4 at the Second Annual Conference on Cold Fusion in Como, Italy. More than 250 scientists from the United States, Germany, Japan, Italy, USSR, Spain, Sweden, Denmark and China attended the meeting.
"The highlights of the conference have been the confirmation of the original Fleisch-mann/Pons results from different groups" including researchers at Stanford Research Institute in California and scientists at Rome University, Preparata said.
"The recent results of Melvin Miles and collaborators of the Naval Weapon Center in China Lake, Calif., on excess heat production correlated with Helium-4 release, demonstrate the unmistakable nuclear nature of the phenomenon of `cold fusion,' " Preparata said.
The scientists met in Italy just days after the U.'s Cold Fusion Institute closed its doors due to lack of funds. Last year, the premier edition of the international conference lured 200 scientists from all over the world to Utah.
Pons and co-researcher Martin Fleischmann stunned the scientific world in 1989 when they announced they could generate heat through fusion, the same process that powers the sun, in simple experiments using water and palladium. But when few other scientists could consistently reproduce their results, cold fusion research in Utah was harshly criticized.
This year in Italy a paper given by Fritz Will, former director of the U.'s institute, who now bears the title of U. research professor in chemistry, was well-received, Pre-parata said. Will's experiments contain a recipe for cells that consistently generate tritium.
Also at the conference, Pons reported on his own heat-producing experiments done at the U. institute for which new patents have been filed.
Pons, who's conducting research in Europe, said he is now using new forms of palladium, which are producing much higher levels of power than previously reported.
Although also present at the Italian conference, researchers at EPRI, a government-funded consortium, were tight-lipped about the specific details of their work and recent patents. But in a slide presentation illustrating an EPRI experiment, researchers claimed the experiment had produced 250 percent excess heat continuously. When questioned, scientists wouldn't detail that claim, saying they hadn't run that experiment enough times to make announcements.
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Report at U.
The State Fusion/Energy Advisory Council, which has overseen Utah's investment in fusion research, will receive a final report by the University of Utah on Monday, July 15. The council will also discuss how to spend what's left of the state's $5 million fusion allocation and what to do with equipment purchased with state funds. The council will meet at 1 p.m. in the State Capitol, Room 303.