#<PRE>
                           A Cold Fusion Primer
                 Cold fusion, 1994: What's it all about?

                  BY EUGENE F. MALLOVE AND JED ROTHWELL

            Copied with permission from the May 1994 issue of
        "Cold Fusion" magazine and converted to HTML format by
        rei@mit.edu.  Spelling errors and typos are likely the
        fault of the converter (a result of typing in the
        document by hand).

           [ShareDebate International Editor's note: Reprinted in
        ShareDebate International per written permission of
        Eugene F. Mallove.]

            You can skip right to these informative sections:

           * Major research organizations

           * Recent Significant Developments

            What happened to cold fusion, the "miracle or
        mistake," announced at the University of Utah by Drs.
        Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons in March 1989? It
        would not be surprising if you thought that cold fusion
        were "dead," because, unfortunately, the scientific
        establishment, the hot fusion community, and many in the
        news media have ignored or maligned cold fusion research.

            But cold fusion is far from dead. It is alive not
        only in dozens of laboratories in the United States, but
        in numerous foreign research centers, particularly in
        Japan.

            Here are the basic facts about cold fusion as they
        stand in early 1994. For continuing monthly coverage of
        this rapidly expanding field, consider subscribing to
        this magazine, which every month will provide information
        unobtainable elsewhere, plus summaries of what is being
        reported worldwide in the technical journals.


                      Hot fusion versus cold fusion

            Hot fusion is the kind of nuclear reaction that
        powers the Sun and the stars. At temperatures of millions
        of degrees, the nuclei of hydrogen atoms can overcome
        their natural tendency to repel one another and join or
        fuse to form helium nuclei. This releases enormous
        energy, according to Einstein's famous E=mc^2 formula ---
        the mass being lost in the reaction being converted to
        energy. Fusion is the opposite of fission, which is the
        release of energy by splitting heavy uranium or plutonium
        nuclei. Scientists the world over have spent more than
        four decades and billions of dollars (an estimated $15
        billion in the U.S. alone) to investigate the possibility
        of mimicking with devices here on Earth the fusion
        reactions of the stars. These are complex and large
        machines that rely on high magnetic fields or powerful
        lasers to compress and heat fusion fuel --- typically the
        isotopes of hydrogen, deuterium and tritium.

            The controlled hot fusion program has made enormous
        strides, but all agree that the earliest possible time
        when practical hot fusion devices may be available is
        about three decades away. Hot fusion is a very tough
        engineering problem. Many engineers --- even those
        favorable to hot fusion --- suggest that the "tokamak"
        reactor approach being followed by the U.S. Department of
        Energy will never result in commercially viable
        technology. The U.S. hot fusioneers and their
        international collaborators now want to build a big,
        complex test reactor called ITER (International
        Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor), which might begin to
        operate in 2005. A commercial hot fusion power plant
        would not be on-line until at least 2040. The annual
        budget for hot fusion research in the U.S. regularly
        exceeds $500 million, and they now seek increased funding
        for ITER.

            Mind you, the hot fusion program has never produced a
        single watt of power beyond the electric power that was
        put into each experiment. Occasionally, such as in
        December 1993 at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory,
        "breakthroughs" in hot fusion are announced in which the
        power of hot fusion reaction reaches a record level, but
        the level has always been below the electric power put
        in.


                    You can't pinch it, but it's real

            "Cold fusion" is a real but still incompletely
        explained energy-producing phenomenon, that occurs when
        ordinary hydrogen and the special form of hydrogen called
        deuterium are brought together with metals, such as
        palladium, titanium, and nickel. Usually, some triggering
        mechanism, such as electricity or acoustic energy, is
        required to provoke the "cold fusion" effects. Both
        ordinary hydrogen and deuterium are abundant in ordinary
        water --- whether fresh water, ocean water, ice, or snow
        --- so the process will likely end many of the world's
        energy concerns, if it can be developed commercially.
        Now, this seems all but certain. (the deuterium form of
        hydrogen is present naturally as one out of every 7,000
        hydrogen atoms and is easy to separate.)

            Cold fusion releases enormous quantities of energy in
        the form of heat, not radiation, as in hot fusion. This
        heat energy is hundreds to thousands of times what
        ordinary chemical reactions could possibly yield. If
        "cold fusion" is a heretofore unknown form of benign
        nuclear reaction --- as most researchers in the field
        believe --- there is more potential cold fusion energy in
        a cubic mile of sea water than in all of the oil reserves
        on earth. Whatever the explanation --- nuclear reactions,
        exotic "super-chemistry" perhaps requiring some
        modifications to quantum mechanics --- or something even
        more bizarre (such as tapping of the zero-point energy of
        space at the atomic level), cold fusion seems destined to
        become a dominant source of energy.

            Cold fusion, in contrast to hot fusion, occurs in
        relatively simple apparatus, albeit not yet without some
        difficulties. cold fusion reactions are not at all like
        the conventional hot fusion reactions. If they were, cold
        fusion experimenters would have been killed by massive
        flows of radiation --- neutrons and gamma rays. The
        continuing wonder of cold fusion is that it is apparently
        a very clean reaction that gives very little of the
        radiation common to fission and fusion reactions. In cold
        fusion experiments, low-level neutrons, tritium, helium-
        4, and isotope shifts of metal elements have been seen.

            Cold fusion researchers have attempted to find
        theoretical models to explain the observed cold fusion
        effects --- the large thermal energy releases, the low-
        level nuclear phenomena, and the absence of massive,
        harmful radiation, and other conventional nuclear
        effects. There is yet no single, generally accepted
        theory that explains all these phenomena. There is no
        doubt, however, that the phenomena exist and will
        eventually be explained --- most likely in the next few
        years.


                         The cold fusion evidence

            The most important evidence for cold fusion is the
        excess heat energy that comes from special
        electrochemical cells --- much more heat coming out than
        electrical energy being fed in. Competent and careful
        researchers have now confirmed that under the proper
        conditions it is possible to obtain excess power output
        beyond input power anywhere from 10% beyond input to many
        thousands of times the input power! In fact, in
        experiments reported at the Fourth International
        Conference on Cold fusion (December 1993), one
        researcher, D. T. Mzuno of Hokkaido University, reported
        an output/input ratio of 70,000! Sometimes this power
        comes out in bursts, but it has also appeared
        continuously in some experiments for hundreds of hours,
        and in some cases even for many months. When this power
        is added up to give kilowatt-hours, the inescapable
        conclusion is that much more energy is being released
        than any possible chemical reaction (as we ordinarily
        understand such reactions) could yield.

            And there is more. Neutrons, tritium, energetic
        charged particles, and other ionizing radiations have
        been detected in a variety of cold fusion experiments. In
        the past few years, there has also emerged a startling
        body of experimental evidence that elements have been
        transmuted in cold fusion experiments. Several
        laboratories have found helium-4, for example, and low
        levels of radioactive metal atoms. Isotopes of silver and
        rhodium have appeared in palladium electrodes from cold
        fusion cells where no such atoms existed before the
        experiments began. Moreover, many of these experiments
        differ significantly from one another in their approach
        and conditions. So, there is no chance that the various
        laboratories are all making the same systematic errors in
        all these experiments. These nuclear effects are clearly
        the hallmark of nuclear processes of heretofore unknown
        character. By itself, this nuclear evidence points to an
        entirely new realm of phenomena of staggering scientific
        importance. The excess energy in some of these
        experiments is virtual proof that something very
        extraordinary and of enormous potential technological
        significance has been discovered. In the early days of
        cold fusion research, when scientists were struggling and
        learning how to replicate the effect, there were many
        poorly done experiments, and many mistakes. In the weeks
        following the 1989 announcement by Drs. Martin
        Fleischmann and Stanley Pons at the University of Utah,
        large numbers of scientists tried to replicate the
        phenomenon, and failed --- or thought they had failed.
        They actually might have obtained positive results, but
        for various reasons falsely interpreted and improperly
        reported their data.

            The experiment is considerably more complicated and
        difficult to perform than originally reported in some
        scientific and popular news journals. Many scientists
        became disillusioned with the filed after the initial
        "boom and bust," but a smaller number of determined
        scientists dug in and continued to work on the problem.
        some of them continued, day in and day out, and finally
        achieved success. Soon after the discovery was announced,
        in the National University system of Japan, a low-key,
        long-term program was established, involving over 100
        scientists in 40 institutions. The program was
        coordinated by Dr. Hideo Ikegami of the National
        Institute of Fusion Science in Nagoya. Another long-term,
        well-financed program was sponsored by the U.S. Electric
        Power Research Institute (described below). These
        programs have gradually yielded a solid body of carefully
        replicated experimental evidence. Many of the experiments
        performed during the last five years produced so much
        heat, and used such accurate and sensitive instruments,
        that the results from them are certain. It is revealing
        that the only people saying that these experiments must
        all be in error either have never done cold fusion
        experiments themselves or have left the field of cold
        fusion experimentation, following their early and
        hastily-drawn conclusion that "cold fusion" was
        impossible. Major research organizations Several hundred
        laboratories around the world have obtained positive cold
        fusion results. A partial list, which appeared in "Fire
        from Ice: Searching for the Truth Behind the Cold Fusion
        Furor," in 1991 is already outdated. In the spring of
        199, a conference in the former Soviet Union revealed
        many more positive results; at the Second Annual
        conference on cold Fusion held in Como, Italy, in July
        1991, much more positive evidence for cold fusion
        emerged. AT the Third International conference on Cold
        Fusion in October 1992, the evidence became overwhelming.
        At the Fourth International Conference on Cold Fusion
        (Maui, December 1993), the field blossomed in many new
        directions: new methods of generating excess power, and
        new observations --- especially the apparent
        transmutation of heavy elements at low-energy. Research
        facilities in the U.S. and elsewhere in the world
        reporting important cold fusion results include:

           * Electric power Research Institute (EPRI)/SRI International
           * Los Alamos National Laboratory
           * Oak Ridge National Laboratory
           * Naval Weapons Center at China Lake
           * Naval Research Laboratory
           * Naval Ocean Systems Center
           * Texas A&M University
           * ENECO, Salt Lake City
           * Hokkaido National University
           * Osaka National University
           * National Institute for Fusion Science, Nagoya
           * Tokyo Institute of Technology
           * Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Bombay, India
           * Technova Corporation
           * IMRA Corporation
           * NTT (Nippon Telephone and Telegraph company)
           * And many other private research laboratories in the
             U.S. and abroad.

            Major financial support for cold fusion research
        comes from these sources: The Ministry of Education,
        Government of Japan. Research is coordinated through
        Japan's National Institute for Fusion Science, in Nagoya,
        and conducted in National University Laboratories. The
        Ministry of Education annually spends $15 to $20 million
        on cold fusion. In the Autumn of 1991, the Ministry of
        International Trade and Industry organized a research
        consortium of 10 major Japanese corporations to advance
        research in cold fusion. Prior to this, only the Ministry
        of Education was involved in this research. This
        consortium is called "The New Hydrogen Energy Panel"
        (NHEP). In the spring of 1992, as the activities of the
        Panel became widely known, Japanese newspapers reported
        that five other major Japanese corporations asked to be
        included.

            In mid-1992, MITI announced a four-year, three
        billion yen ($24million) program to advance cold fusion
        research. This money was to be spent on special expenses
        within the national laboratories, such as travel and
        extra equipment purchases beyond the usual discretionary
        levels. That sum did not include the money, salaries and
        overhead, which come out of separate budgets, and it did
        not count any research in the private sector, which we
        know to be substantial. In fact, the corporate members
        were expected to contribute at least $4 million more to
        the fund, for a total of $28 million. Both MITI and NHEP
        members emphasized that his fund is flexible, and could
        be expanded. The estimated present annual expenditure in
        Japan on cold fusion probably approaches $100 million.

            The electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), Palo
        Alto, CA., (the $500 million/year research arm of the
        U.s. electric utility industry) had spent as of the end
        of 1991 $6 million on cold fusion, and had budgeted as of
        January, 1992 $12 million. The EPRI program continues to
        spend several million dollars per year. EPRI's
        sponsorship of the Fourth International Conference on Cold
        Fusion (December 1993) means that this powerful research
        organization is in the field to stay.

            The public announcement in December 1993 that ENECO,
        a Salt Lake City-based corporation, had acquired
        worldwide licensing rights to the University of Utah's
        cold fusion patents is further indication of the
        increasing corporate interest in cold fusion R&D.


                     Recent Significant Developments

            Here are some of the most extraordinary news
        happenings in cold fusion in recent years:

           * The continuing research of Drs. Fleischmann and Pons
             is impressive. They are now working at a laboratory
             near Nice, France (in Sophia Antipolis) funded by
             Technova Corporation, an affiliate of Toyota which
             is headquartered in Tokyo. At the Como, Italy, cold
             fusion conference in July 1991, the cold fusion
             pioneers revealed that with 10 or 11 silver-
             palladium alloy electrodes they were able to bring
             their electrochemical solution to boiling. In fact,
             after a gestation period to reach boiling, they were
             able to boil away the entire liquid electrolyte in
             less than an hour in each positive case. In the May
             3, 1993 issue of Physics Letters A, Drs. Pons and
             Fleischmann document the calorimetry with which they
             are able to verify the production of power at a
             level of 3.7 kilowatts per cubic centimeter in tiny
             pieces of palladium. They can now repetitively boil
             away the liquid contents of their cells. This is
             approximately the same power density of an operating
             nuclear fission breeder reactor.

           * The Japanese government announced in 1992 that
             Fleischmann and Pons are senior scientific advisors
             for the five-year, multi-million dollar MITI cold
             fusion research program. They continue their work
             at the Japanese facility, IMRA, near NICE.

           * Dr. Michael McKubre's group at SRI International has
             produced definitive proof of excess heat and energy
             production far beyond chemical explanation (200
             megajoules/mole). In his Electric Power Research
             Institute-funded work, McKubre achieved reproducible
             excess power with four different palladium
             electrodes. His group now understands the conditions
             necessary to produce excess heat at will. Dr.
             McKubre stated categorically that the excess energy
             produced in his group's work cannot be explained by
             chemistry. Dr. McKubre's work was interrupted by a
             tragic, unexplained explosion on January 2, 1992. Dr.
             Andrew Riley, an electrochemist, died in the blast.
             Dr. McKubre and Dr. Stuart Smedley were also hurt.
             In 1993, the SRI work resumed, and will become more
             aggressive in its effort to identify the physical
             nature of the "cold fusion" process.

           * The work of Dr. Robert T. Bush and Robert Eagleton
             and their colleagues at California Polytechnic
             Institute achieved one of the highest recorded
             levels of power density production for cold fusion -
             -- similar to that of Drs. Fleischmann and Pons. It
             occurred in a thin film of palladium that was
             deposited on a silver electrode: almost three
             kilowatts per cubic centimeter came out. The is 30
             times the power density of the fuel rods in a
             typical contemporary fission nuclear reactor. The
             cell produced several watts of excess power for
             almost two months.

           * On January 27, 1992 at the ISEM IEEE meeting in
             Nagoya, Japan, Dr. Akito Takahashi of the Department
             of Nuclear Engineering, Osaka National University,
             reported spectacular results. Takahashi's device is
             a 1 mm thick x 35 mm x 35 mm palladium plate. Over a
             one month period, the device put out, on average, 70
             watts of excess heat. About three times more heat
             energy came out of the device than the amount of
             electrical energy put into it. The total excess came
             to more than 200 megajoules of heat, or
             approximately 15,000 eV per atom. This is thousands
             of times more heat than any chemical reaction could
             possibly produce.

           * Dr. Edmund Storms of Los Alamos National Laboratory
             announced on August 15, 1992 that he had
             successfully replicated the Takahashi cold fusion
             experiment. His experiments were conducted using a
             palladium cathode. Dr. Storms' success was published
             in Fusion Technology. Several other groups are known
             to have replicated the Takahashi experiment with
             varying degrees of success, including the group of
             Dr. Francesco Celani in Italy.

           * The Subcommittee on Energy of the House Space,
             Science, and Technology Committee met on May 5, 1993
             to discuss the status and funding of fusion energy.
             The hot fusion program was the focus of about two-
             thirds of the four-hour meeting, with the hot fusion
             ranks again coming to ask for further hundreds of
             millions to continue their work. After that, the
             heretofore outcasts --- cold fusion and aneutronic
             hot fusion --- was the subject. So for the first
             time since the House Science, Space, and Technology
             hearing of April 1989, cold fusion received an
             abbreviated but an open airing before an important
             congressional committee. After the very positive
             reception at this meeting, it appears likely that
             eventual Congressional exploration of cold fusion
             research will occur. The "ice has been broken."

           * Dr. Randell Mills of Hydrocatalysis Power
             Corporation, of Lancaster, PA, whose heat-producing
             experiments with ordinary water-nickel-potassium
             carbonate cells are well regarded in the cold fusion
             field (but still questioned by some), made a
             presentation at the May 5, 1993 Congressional
             hearing. Mills's opening remarks precisely
             summarized what the Lancaster, PA effort is all
             about: "Hydrocatalysis Power Corporation (HPC) has an
             extensive theoretical and experimental research
             program of producing energy from light-water
             electrolytic cells. HPC and Thermacore, Inc.,
             Lancaster, PA are cooperating in developing a
             commercial product. (Thermacore is a well-respected
             defense contractor and its expertise is in the field
             of heat transfer.) Presently, all of the
             demonstration cells of HPC and Thermacore produce
             excess power immediately and continuously. Cells
             producing 50 watts of excess power and greater have
             been in operation for more than one year. Some cells
             can produce 10 times more heat power than the total
             electrical power input to the cell.

             "A steam-producing prototype cell has been
             successfully tested ... The [original] experiment
             has been scaled up by a factor of one thousand, and
             the scaled-up heat cell results have been
             independently confirmed by Thermacore, Inc. Patents
             covering the compositions of matter, structures, and
             methods of the HydroCatalysis process have been filed
             by HPC worldwide with a priority date of April 21,
             1989. HPC and Thermacore are presently fabricating a
             steam-producing demonstration cell."

             Dr. Mills and his colleagues believe that the energy
             source in their ordinary water experiments is
             technologically extremely potent, but they have
             adopted a very radical theory to explain the excess
             heat. These ordinary water experiments were first
             reported in May 1991, and have since been widely
             reproduced --- in Japan, India, and in the U.S. Dr.
             Wills says that the source of excess energy is
             released in a catalytic process whereby the electron
             of the hydrogen atom is induced to undergo a
             transition to a lower electronic energy level than
             the "ground state," as defined by the usual quantum-
             mechanical model of the atom. Thus, stored energy in
             the atom is catalytically released. Mills view many
             of the nuclear effects in "cold fusion" to be real
             effects, which he thinks can be explained by his
             theory.


          Balanced scientific evaluations and reference material

            Several excellent scientific reviews of the cold
        fusion field are highly recommended. Those who want to
        learn more about the remarkable progress in this field
        should examine:

        Dr. Edmund Storms (Los Alamos National Laboratory),
        "Review of Experimental Observations About the Cold
        Fusion Effect," Fusion Technology, 1991, Vol. 20,
        December 1991, pp. 433-477.

        Dr. M. Srinivasan (Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Bombay,
        India), "Nuclear Fusion in an Atomic Lattice: Update on
        the International Status of Cold Fusion Research,"
        Current Science, April 25 1991.

        "A Review of the Investigations of the Fleischmann-Pons
        Phenomena," John O'M. Bockris, Guang H. Lin, and Nigel
        J.C. Packham, Fusion Technology, Vol. 18, August 1990,
        pp. 11-31.

        BARC Studies in Cold Fusion (April-September 1989),
        Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, BARC - 1500, December
        1989, P.K. Iyengar and M. Srinivasan; also in Fusion
        Technology Vol. 18, August 1990, pp. 32-94.

        BARC Studies in Cold Fusion (April-September 1989),
        Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, BARC - 1500, December
        1989, P.K. Iyengar and M. Srinivasan; also in Fusion
        Technology Vol. 18, August 1990, pp. 32-94.

        First Annual Conference on Cold Fusion (March 28-31,
        1990): Conference Proceedings, by the National Cold
        Fusion Institute, Salt Lake City. Anamalous Nuclear
        Effects in Deuterium/Solid Systems, American Institute of
        Physics Conference Proceedings 228, 1991, Steven E.
        Jones, Francesco Scaramuzzi, and David Worledge
        (editors), Proceedings of an International progress
        Review on Anomalous Nuclear Effects in Deuterium/Solid
        Systems, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah, October
        22-24, 1990 (approx. 1000 pages).

        Investigation of Cold Fusion Phenomena in Deuterated
        Metals (four volumes), by the National Cold Fusion
        Institute (Salt Lake City), June 1991, now available from
        NTIS.

        The Science of Cold Fusion: Proceedings of the II Annual
        Conference On Cold Fusion, June 29-July 4, 1991, Como,
        Italy, published by the Italian Physical Society,
        Bologna, Italy, 1991, edited by T. Bressani, E. Del
        Giudice, and G. Preparata (528 pages).

        Frontiers of Cold Fusion, Proceedings of the Third
        International Conference on Cold Fusion (Nagoya, Japan
        21-25 October 1992), edited by Dr. Hideo Ikegami,
        National Institute for Fusion Science, Nagoya 464-01,
        Japan. "Summary of the Third International Conference on
        Cold Fusion in Nagoya," by Professor Peter L. Hagelstein,
        MIT (available from Cold Fusion Research Advocates).

        "The Third International Conference on Cold fusion:
        Scrutiny, Inventive, and Progress," By Drs. Victor Rehn
        and Iqbal Ahmad for the U.S. Office of Naval Research,
        Japan (available from Cold Fusion research Advocate).

        "Anomalous Nuclear Reactions in Condensed Matter: A
        Report on the Third International Meeting on Cold Fusion"
        by Dr. Iqbal Ahmad for the U.S. Army Research Office
        (AMC) - Far East (available from Cold Fusion Research
        Advocates).

            The technical journal published by the American
        Nuclear Society, Fusion Technology formerly was
        exclusively devoted to hot fusion. Since September 1989,
        under the editorship of Professor George Miley, this
        journal has regularly had an extensive section devoted to
        cold fusion. Other journals that have continued to carry
        cold fusion articles are the Japanese Journal of Applied
        Physics, Physics Letters A, and The Journal of
        Electroanalytical Chemistry, where the first cold fusion
        paper appeared.

            Besides "Cold Fusion" Magazine, published monthly,
        which is the world's first magazine devoted exclusively
        to cold fusion R&D and investment, there are several
        newsletters, newspapers, and popular magazines now
        covering cold fusion regularly, or from time-to-time,
        including The Wall Street Journal, Business Week, Cold
        Fusion Times newsletter, Fusion Facts newsletter, 21st
        Century Science and Technology.

            Information is also available from "Cold Fusion"
        magazine Contributing Editor, Jed Rothwell, who co-
        founded Cold Fusion Research Advocates: Jed Rothwell

        Cold Fusion Research Advocates
        2060 Peachtree Industrial Court ---
        Suite 313
        Chamblee, Georgia 30341
        Phone: 404-451-9890; Fax: 404-458-2404


                     The question of reproducibility

            Cold fusion effects have not always been easy to
        reproduce, but that does not make them any less real. The
        difficulties with reproducibility, however, are rapidly
        disappearing as researchers discover the conditions
        required to provoke the phenomena, such as sufficient
        deuterium loading of metal lattices, specific
        metallurgical requirements, and peculiar triggering
        mechanisms. Some experimenters now report very regular
        appearances of cold fusion phenomena, such as tritium
        production and excess power as exhibited by heating, and
        even boiling.

            Critics of cold fusion research have regularly
        dismissed positive results simply because the effects
        have not always been repeatable. Of course, there are
        many natural phenomena that are highly erratic, not
        repeatable, and definitely not predictable, such as
        meteorite falls, lightning strikes, earthquakes, and the
        elusive "ball lightning." There are also a host of modern
        technical devices that will not function if subtle,
        sometimes poorly understood composition parameters are
        askew; semiconductor electronic devices are good examples
        of this. It is not so surprising that the exotic cold
        fusion phenomena are subject to similar difficulties.


                Negative results not necessarily negative

            It is shocking but true. In the case of three major
        research groups that had supposedly negative results in
        the spring and summer of 1989 ---Caltech, the Harwell
        Laboratory in England, and MIT --- there now appear to be
        significant questions about their work which the
        scientific community at-large has not addressed. Three
        scientists have found simple algebraic errors in the
        Caltech work, which invalidate the paper's negative
        conclusions. These scientists wrote many times to Nature
        magazine, but Nature refused to publish the corrections.
        A critique, however, was published in Fusion Technology.

            In the MIT Plasma Fusion Center case, serious
        questions have arisen about the methods used to evaluate
        excess heat results. The unpublished data appear to show
        indications of excess heat, but the published version
        does not show these indications. Furthermore, analysis of
        the methodology employed by this group revealed fatal
        flaws --- even if the data had been properly handled. (A
        technical discussion of the 1989 MIT Plasma Fusion Center
        cold fusion calorimetry appeared in Fusion Facts, August,
        1992.) In each case of the widely-touted and supposedly
        completely "negative" Harwell Laboratory (U.K.)
        calorimetry results, independent analysis of that
        laboratory's raw data show evidence of excess heat
        production. Details of the Harwell Laboratory problems
        have been published in both the Third and Fourth
        International Conference on Cold fusion Proceedings.


                         Theories of cold fusion

            When conventional (low temperature) superconductivity
        was discovered accidentally in 1911, there was no
        physical theory that could explain it, nor was there any
        such theory for about the next half century. The much
        discussed high-temperature superconductivity, which
        appeared in 1986-1987, still has no satisfactory theory
        to account for it, yet industries and governments are
        bent on developing and commercializing it.

            The same should be true for cold fusion. However,
        because cold fusion seems to be an even more radical
        departure from conventional physics wisdom than high
        temperature superconductivity, and because of the past
        reproducibility problems of cold fusion, the latter has
        not been accepted as readily as high-temperature
        superconductivity.

            Cold fusion does not operate like hot fusion. That
        has been clear from the start. It must have some other
        explanation.

            Happily, several scientists have proposed theories to
        explain cold fusion. Each of these theories might explain
        all or aspects of this astounding new physical
        phenomenon. Cold fusion theorists include physics Nobel
        laureate Julian Schwinger, Peter Hagelstein of MIT,
        Robert Bush of California Polytechnic Institute (Pomona),
        Scott and Talbott Chubb of the U.S. Naval Research
        Laboratory, Akito Takahashi of Osaka National University,
        Giuliano Preparata of the University of Milano hot fusion
        expert Frederick Mayer, Randell Mills of Hydrocatalysis
        power Corporation (Lancaster, Pennsylvania), and many
        others.


                     Notable cold fusion conferences

           * First Annual Conference on Cold Fusion, Salt Lake
             City, March 1990.

           * Anomalous Nuclear Effects in Deuterium/Solid
             Systems, Provo, Utah, October 1990.

           * Conference on Cold Fusion under the auspices of the
             Soviet Academy of Sciences, March 1991.

           * Second Annual Conference on Cold Fusion, Como,
             Italy, June-July 199

           * Japan Nuclear Energy Conference, cold fusion
             seminar, October 15-18, 1991, at Kyushu National
             University, Engineering Department, Fukuoka city,
             Japan. Part of an annual conference sponsored by the
             Atomic Energy Society of Japan.

           * The ISEM conference on January 27, 1992. Principal
             sponsors were Nagoya University, the JSME, and the
             IEEE.

           * The Third International Conference on Cold Fusion,
             October 21-25, 1992, in Nagoya, Japan. Principal
             sponsors were the Physical Society of Japan, the
             Japan Society of Applied Physics, Atomic Energy
             Society of Japan, the Institute of Electrical
             Engineers of Japan, the Chemical Society of Japan,
             The Electrochemical Society of Japan, and the Japan
             Society of Plasma Science and Nuclear Fusion
             Research.

           * The Fourth International Conference on Cold Fusion,
             December 6-9, 1993, Maui, Hawaii, sponsored by the
             Electric Power Research Institute (Palo Alto, CA).

           * The Fifth International Conference on Cold Fusion
             will be held in Nice, France in April 1995.

           * The Sixth International Conference on Cold Fusion will
             be in Beijing, China in mid-1996.


                     The Future: Too good to be true?

            Cold fusion research is not "Big Science." It does
        not need massive installations, just relatively small-
        scale dedicated work at national laboratories,
        universities, and in private industries, which are
        already beginning to enter the field in the U.S.

            Cold fusion does, however, required the talents of
        top scientists and engineers, combined with sophisticated
        analytical instrumentation. Federal laboratories,
        floundering in search of a new mission, are well-equipped
        to support cold fusion research. Cold fusion research
        could well become a major mission for scientists at these
        laboratories. Cold fusion energy development, however,
        will dominantly be the territory for private industry.
        There is no need for massive government investment. But
        government must smooth the path for private efforts.

            Is it really possible that a revolutionary energy
        technology has been inappropriately cast aside in the
        U.S.? That is exactly what has happened, as scientific
        and engineering developments will show. This need not be
        true any longer. For the economic and environmental
        well-being of the nation and the world, every citizen
        must become aware of the facts about cold fusion, and
        help encourage funding for American research.

            Probably the most difficult hurdle in trying to come
        to terms with cold fusion is that is seems too fantastic
        scientifically, and "too good to be true" economically
        and socially. But the same could have been and was said
        about many other technological revolutions as they began
        to happen. Cold fusion will likely revolutionize the
        world in ways we can barely begin to imagine. We believe
        that before the year 2000 there will be cold fusion
        powered automobiles, home heating systems, small compact
        electrical generating units, and aerospace applications.
        These technologies will revolutionize the world as they
        speed the end of the Fossil Fuel Age. The stakes have
        never been higher. We should remember the sentiment of
        the famous scientist, Michael Faraday, in the last
        century, to whom we owe our revolutionary electrically
        powered civilization. He wrote, "Nothing is too wonderful
        to be true."

        Back to the top level of the "Cold Fusion" homepage.

        Back to the top of this page.

#</PRE>