The chairman of the State Fusion/Energy Advisory Council on Friday charged that a "complete violation of the scientific process" occurred when the University of Utah announced alleged "cold fusion" prematurely in May 1989.
Raymond L. Hixson delivered his burst of high-energy criticism during the 15th annual Utah Conference on Global Economics and New Issues in Science, Energy and the Environment. The conference, held in the U.'s Olpin Union, attracted scores of participants."Too much time and money was wasted in this program," he said, referring to Utah's fusion research. But with all the scientific bloodletting and other difficulties, he said, "I'm surprised that it came as far as it did, and I don't think the state's money was poorly spent."
Apparently, he believes that while waste occurred, overall the program was worth the investment because potentially priceless patents resulted.
It was the strongest criticism to date by Hixson.
The advisory council oversaw the state's $5 million investment in the experiments and patents based on claims by researchers Martin Fleischmann and B. Stanley Pons that they had discovered a "cold fusion" process. The facility where the research was carried out, the National Cold Fusion Institute, closed this summer.
As he has said before, Hixson insisted that he believes researchers did find "cold fusion." But he acknowledged that the process has a long way to go before it is a practical source of heat.
Hixson said it was harder to prepare for his talk "than anything I've done." He opened with a sizzling critique of the controversy, along the way roasting physicists, the U. and other university scientists.
He started with the university's March 23, 1989, announcement that Fleischmann and Pons had discovered a technique to produce "fusion in a jar" - which if true could prove to be nearly a limitless source of energy.
"The first big problem is they went public with it - a complete violation of the scientific process, at least as it's practiced in a university setting," he said.
Instead of announcing then that the long-sought fusion had been discovered, the process should have been peer-reviewed, he said. That is, other scientists should have studied Pons and Fleischmann's data and technique to determine if there were some error.
The second big problem is that physicists - some of whom had a vested interest in costly hot-fusion research - had a knee-jerk reaction of "it can't happen," he said.
"It's impossible to have fusion going on at these low temperatures," he said, quoting the prevailing attitude.
A third difficulty was that the Legislature's $5 million investment in the program was authorized by a bill that "had a few flaws," he said. The fusion council was required to release state money for the research if there was evidence of excess heat generated by the process.
However, the heat didn't have to be a result of nuclear fusion, he said.
The money went to the university and the council had review authority. But, Hixson added, "we had no real independent means to verify anything . . .
"There seemed to be ample evidence" of excess heat. Also, a number of researchers had duplicated the experiments (although one scientist at the university said he couldn't duplicate it after originally saying he could).
Because the council felt there was confirmation, "therefore we had to release the money."
The Fusion Institute's research program was beset by implementation problems, he said. Management seemed inefficient "and the science was not so far along as we thought it was."
Most of the scientific problems were in the area of accounting for heat involved in the "cold fusion" process, and in the reproducibility of the experiment. In conventional science, a process must be reproduced at will in order to gain acceptance.
Scientists around the world began pressing for a halt to the experiments, saying the University of Utah's scientific reputation was at stake, he said. Hostile criticism, some of it shockingly virulent, came from scientists.
"It became very bad, very difficult to work in that framework," Hixson said.
Because patents were involved, Pons and Fleischmann didn't have the freedom to tell scientists elsewhere the details of their research. The secrecy was necessary to protect patent interests. So far, the university has filed for eight and is filing for two more.
The pair's patent attorney was "extremely protective," Hixson said. So were patent attorneys retained by the university and the state.
Fleischmann and Pons began "withdrawing into their shells, becoming more and more reclusive," he said. They contended that data given to their peers and the university was misused to discredit them, he said.
"It gets to be a dog fight. People began to lose their rationality. There was a lot of that."
The final bombshell was the $500,000 behest. Early last year, the university received a donation from a private source in that sum, to be used for fusion research.
"It was significant to us there had been a major donation," he said. Not only did it indicate support from outsiders, but it helped to meet projected budgets.
"And then we find in May 1990 that that wasn't the case at all. It was anonymous, but it wasn't private."
The money actually came from a university fund, and was disbursed on the instructions of then-U. President Chase Peterson. Hixson emphasized that Peterson had the legal right to use the fund in that way.
With this development, some faculty members were practically in revolt.
They said the money should have been earmarked for more promising fields than research in what might have been only a pipe dream. As Hixson put it, they thought "the president had involved money which could have been used for other purposes."
Funding sources began to dry up.
Faculty members disapproved of the way Peterson handled the matter, and so did the advisory council. But Peterson had good motives, he said: "He was trying to prime the pump," in hopes of encouraging other donations.
Hixson referred to the faculty critics as the "gang of 22," and said they wanted an in-depth review of issues including the scientific research. They seemed intent on ferreting out fraud and deception, he said.
Hixson indicated that kind of a review could amount to a violation of academic freedom to carry out research.
Led by Hugo Rossi, at one time the director of the Fusion Institute, cold fusion critics went to the press, he said. Rossi told reporters the institute had been unable to produce cold fusion and might have to close shop if there were no results in half a year.
"We were persuaded at this time to do this scientific review," he said. The council thought the review was premature but carried it out anyhow. At the same time, he said, scientists elsewhere were getting promising results in fusion experiments.
"The result of all that was that the report was very positive with respect to the research that was done," he said.
The report couldn't say cold fusion was established. Examiners could not evaluate whether Pons' report was satisfactory because they heard him but could not see any results.
Wilford Hansen of Utah State University's physics department evaluated Pons and Fleischmann's raw data at the council's request. His final report is being prepared, with peer review.
Hixson said Fleischmann is "very ill" in England while Pons is in France working on a secret project, not fusion.
"I believe after what I know about it, is that the Pons-Fleischmann discovery is real," he said. It produces heat, and it is a nuclear process, Hixson said.
"Now the evidence has swung to the other side . . . that fusion in a jar does exist," Hixson said.