‘Cold Fusion’ Scientists Clash With Panel

SALT LAKE CITY —  State officials prepared to review the controversial “cold fusion” research program today as one of the two scientists involved said angrily that he would miss the meeting because he learned of it only hours before and the other said he would skip it.

“I’m infuriated,” said Martin Fleischmann, a scientist at the National Cold Fusion Institute at the University of Utah. “They have known for ages that we would not be available in October.” Fleischmann spoke from his native England, where he is receiving medical treatment.

The angry accusation from Fleischmann, which the university quickly denied, came hours after the other scientist involved in the research, B. Stanley Pons, requested a one-year sabbatical leave in a fax transmission from his attorney, University of Utah President Chase Peterson said.

The state’s nine-member Fusion Energy Advisory Council is reviewing the scientists’ disputed work and was scheduled to discuss renewed funds at the meeting today.

Pons had been scheduled to address the panel; university officials said they had tried unsuccessfully to notify Fleischmann.

Curtailing financing is a possibility, said Randy Moon, the state’s science adviser and a member of the council. The institute was founded in part with a $5-million state grant.

“Stan owes it to a lot of people to be able to report on his results,” Moon said. “A lot of people at the university have been counting on Pons to show the research is viable.”

Pons and Fleischmann set the scientific world on its ear in March, 1989, when they announced they had achieved a nuclear fusion reaction in a jar at room temperature. Many scientists have been unable to duplicate their work and have disputed their claim. Some have suggested that it resulted from lab errors.

C. Gary Triggs, an attorney for both scientists, said Pons planned to return to the university in a week or so. He said Pons was requesting the sabbatical because he was faced with too many distractions while defending the cold fusion claims.

“The only way that is ever going to happen is when they have the time to dedicate to the science,” he said. “Stan and Martin are scientists, not politicians.”