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(Source: New Energy Times)
STATUS OF COLD FUSION and REPORT ON EIGHTH INTERNATIONAL COLD FUSION CONFERENCE

Douglas R. O. Morrison

SUBJECTS
1. Introduction
2. Concluding Talks by Cold Fusion Supporters
3. Funding
3.1 General, Estimate of Minimum Total Funding
3.2 BlackLight Power - a Financial Success Story?
4. Experimental Results and Techniques
4.1 Regionalisation of Results
4.2 Calorimetry
4.3 Neutrons
4.4 Charged Particles, Gamma Emission - Do Good Experiments - Try to Prove Yourself Wrong
4.5 Transmutations - How Many Miracles?
4.6 Low Energy d-d cross section
4.7 Alchemy
4.8 Biology and Cold Fusion
5. Material Sciences
6. Theories
7. Predictions of Commercial Applications
8. Brief Topics
8.1 US Patent Office; 8.2 Infinite Energy; 8.3 QED and QCD;
8.4 Court Appeal over Scientific Fraud Case;
8.5 Top Twenty Foul-ups of the Twentieth Century;
8.6 Papers, New Book; 8.7 Personalities not at ICCF-8
9. Future Meetings
10. Will Cold Fusion Continue?
11. Conclusions.
Appendix 1 - Problems for Edward Teller
Appendix 2 - Theories at ICCF-8
Appendix 3 - Russian Conference and Sponsors.
Appendix 4 - How Will True Believers Respond to this Status Report?

ABSTRACT

True Believers in cold fusion still continue and held their eighth meeting in Italy in May 2000. They are slightly fewer and two of the original three discoverers no longer attend. Experiments continue and give remarkable results with abundant transmutations, biological considerations, and even the conditions for alchemy are presented - but criticisms and doubts are not expressed. Many complaints are made of shortage of funds, and the only remaining government sponsor appears to be ENEA. An exception to the shortage of funds is the remarkable BlackLight Power company started by a medical researcher, R. Mills, which has collected $22 million and plans an IPO on a stock market to raise more money. Mills has doubtful results and a strange new theory of a hydrogen atom with fractional electron orbits. Here it is estimated that a lower limit of the money given in large grants, for cold fusion is $100,000,000 - the total amount will be much higher.

This paper tries to explain why some enthusiasts continue despite the overwhelming evidence against cold fusion. The talks of the summary speakers are given almost in their own words. The conditions for doing good experiments are described and the importance of trying to prove yourself wrong is emphasised. The unusual theories proposed to explain their results are presented. It is discussed if cold fusion will continue.

1. INTRODUCTION

Yes, cold fusion is not quite dead as almost all scientists assume. There is still a small group of True Believers who meet, discuss, and compare. Their eighth International Conference on Cold Fusion, ICCF-8, was held at Lerici, a beautiful small seaside resort close to La Spezia on the Gulf of Poets (Byron, Shelley etc.) from the 21 to 26 May 2000.

The meeting was well-organised by Antonella De Ninno and Francesco Scaramuzzi of the Italian Agency for New Technologies, Energy and the Environment, ENEA, laboratory at Frascati with the assistance of the nearby marine biology lab of ENEA. The main sponsor was ENEA. The other sponsors were the Italian Physical Society, the Italian National Council for Research, and the INFN.

A major personality missing was Giuliano Preparata who died at Easter after a long illness. He was a strong and forceful character who was not afraid of controversy - it was said that if he entered a blind alley, when he left it, the alley was twice as long and twice as wide. It was not said at the meeting, but I have been told that he was an excellent teacher at Milan and formed many good students. Carlo Rubbia, the Director of ENEA, kindly put him in charge of a strengthened laboratory in Frascati and he worked there intensively until the end, despite his illness. The ICCF-8 meeting was dedicated to him.

The yearly meetings have drifted into biannual ones. The attendance was down to 145 from the previous 200 to over 300, and several important figures did not attend. Stan Pons was again absent - since the collapse of his Japanese-financed laboratory in the South of France, he appears to have retreated to a farm nearby. Another of the original three "discoverers of cold fusion", Steve Jones has also stopped attending. Three of the International Advisory Committee members did not appear - T. Bressani, C. Sanchez-Lopez and F. Jaeger, as well as many other prominent personalities of previous years - they are listed under section 8 - Brief Topics. As usual, I was the only sceptic present and was generally well received though when four of us were talking one day, they started a discussion as to whether I was dangerous or not. Two said I was not, while Mallove, a spin doctor, who is more concerned about public relations than science, said I was.

In this status report, a description of the ICCF-8 meeting will also be given. The concluding talks plus discussion on the final morning will be repeated almost in full. These are of particular interest as I am often asked how these participants can continue to believe in cold fusion despite all the scientific evidence against - are they sincere in their activities? Everyone can make up their own minds reading these Concluding Talks - my opinion is that they are sincere to themselves and are True Believers in the non-ironical sense. But, with perhaps one exception, they are not critical of the extraordinary and contradictory results and theories presented at the conference.

2. CONCLUDING TALKS BY COLD FUSION SUPPORTERS

Here an attempt has been made to reproduce the actual talks without any commentary, only with some changes for readability. The first person is used and is the speaker (not this writer).

F. Scaramuzzi announced that there would be 5 prepared talks and then free discussion.

He said there were 26 papers presented and 50 posters, giving a total of 76 contributions. The number of people registered was 145. The four biggest nationalities were 41 Italians, 35 Americans, 22 Japanese and 12 Russians.

His own personal comments on the conference were;

FRANCESCO SCARAMUZZI said;

The conference had been rich in results, some of which were; Evidence of strong correlations of excess heat and 4He by McKubre, Arata and Takahashi who under certain conditions found both. This showed the nuclear origin of cold fusion.

Evidence of transmutations was growing steadily and indicated the nuclear nature of the effect.

For palladium, there had been studies of the charging modes and mechanisms, e.g. the work of De Ninno et al., Celani et al., in Frascati. There has been an important and definite trend in the cold fusion experimental results. A feature was the low dimensionality of the samples corresponding to the need for thin samples or powders. The cathodes were all small in size but that would have to change in the future, but at present, with bulk samples there were problems in charging with deuterium gas.

In the field of theory, and there were many of them, some were quantum effects. I am strongly pushed to think in terms of coherence. Since we cannot see individual reactions, it must be coherence. The theory of Profs. Preparata and Del Giudice seems consistent with the experiment of De Ninno et al. Cold fusion is just the beginning of coherence applications.

Where do we stand? The problem is frustrating; there is the scepticism of conventional scientists most of whom think that cold fusion is not Science and does not exist. We need much more confirmation of results, with papers refereed and published, but major journals do not accept cold fusion papers. Arata has published five papers. Fusion Technology with George Miley as editor, does help. There is an absence now of groups in Europe except in Italy and also there is one group in Paris, but none in Germany, none in Holland, none in Britain. One way of interpreting this, is that our success has made us too optimistic and this has promoted a negative reaction.

My personal conviction (not shared) is that cold fusion is mostly Science. Progress needs lots of work and it would be much faster if we had more funds. I have no doubt that it is nuclear energy. It would be foolish to make predictions of working machines before some 10 years, but then progress will be very fast.

In Japan there have been two very important events;

a) The IMRA/Toyota organisation worked for 6 to 8 years on CF

b) the government through MITI and NHE, worked for 4 years.

Both were lost two years ago. There were many reasons, apart from errors - they were set up for short term practical applications, and also the death of Mr. Toyoda, the Director of Toyota. But we have 22 papers from Japan mainly from professors at universities who worked with IMRA and MITI.

We meet only every two years now - we should stay in touch more frequently.

There is a simple message - the production of heat is real and is nuclear.

GEORGE MILEY said;

Now the great direction is reproducibility, then we will work on the basic science and finally on applications when we have government support and industrial company proposals. At the start we were too optimistic when we talked of "Electricity too cheap to meter".

Now we need basic science to go forward. Normally governments support basic science then the information is freely available for everyone. The propagation of information is basic to scientific exchange.

Theories - there have been improvements with the main classes of theories being (a) new particles, (b) various neutron groupings, (c) coherence, (d) photo-dissociation.

The challenge is that we need a benchmark experiment, then we can measure new phenomenon, new experiments, loading of gas, flux needed for reactions to occur. A question for theorists - what is the loading and flux required? - (loading is the amount of hydrogen gas that is loaded into the electrode, e.g. by electrolysis).

Experiments; reproducibility is needed for good science. Where are we? I do not believe that we are quite there yet. For calorimetry there has been a large effort with increasing accuracy but we need sufficient heat that accuracy is not important.

For particle detectors, old techniques such as CR-39 etching plates and photographic films, are returning. It could be argued that there must be better ways as techniques advance, to measure loadings. Scanning electron microscopes are now used.

At the first cold fusion meeting and at workshops, it was said that we needed experiments that measured both heat and particles emitted, that is, integral experiments that measured many quantities simultaneously. This is still a key challenge as most experiments still tend to measure one quantity at a time.

Experiments need diagnostics - more and better, specifically designed for the experiment. Improved charged particle detectors which are so small that they can go inside the cell.

Reproductivity - did not hear one paper that is fully reproducible. We are still trying to reproduce the Pons and Fleischmann work. The field contains d-d reactions, protons, neutrons, tritium, LENR, applications.

There seem to be regimes where phenomenon do occur - the problem is how to go from one regime to another. Heavy and light water each have a regime.

For practical applications, we need not just Watts but gain. Inertial Confined Fusion needs a gain of a 100; here we need a gain of 5 times. But at present our results give gains of 10, 20, 30%.

If the power input is 1 Watt and the output 1.2 Watts, then we need to re-circulate or it will not sell.

Am fascinated by the papers on biological transmutations - we see so many phenomenon which do not involve lattices.

A. ROUSSETSKI said;

In Russia there are some 20 groups working on cold fusion. There is some small amount of funds from state support, universities, the Academy of Sciences, Russian Physical Society, Russian Chemical Society and Russian Nuclear Society. Financial support comes from commercial firms - they enabled over half of us to travel here. We wish to thank the organisers for support and accommodation.

In October 2000, there will be a conference in Russia, near Sochi on the Black Sea, to discuss cold fusion transmutations - this year will be the eighth. There are meetings in Russian universities every month.

JEAN-PAUL BIBERIAN said;

In 1989, there were two questions; is cold fusion reproducible? and are there any cold fusion applications? If there are applications, then we can believe. If Christ comes back flying in the air, then people would believe. I think we solved point one.

When you have artists in the family, some wait for a prince to arrive and recognise you - it is the Cinderella syndrome. Instead you have to go out and be recognised.

One has to go and talk about cold fusion to the American Physical Society, the American Chemical Society, and the American Nuclear Society.

Enemies of cold fusion are not active when they retire, but friends of cold fusion are active after they retire, so eventually with time, cold fusion will win in the end!

There is a new generation coming who are more open-minded and who are against nuclear power.

It is 11 years since Pons and Fleischmann announced cold fusion - a solar cycle - it is time to start again.

George Miley will retire in a few months from the editorship of Fusion Technology - this may give a problem in getting published. Our other publishing help is J-P Vigier who is an editor of Physics Letters A, but have heard little of him recently. These are the two sources of entry to publishing cold fusion, but they may be lost soon. We should start our own journal with referees. An electronic journal which would be cheaper, faster and better - too good to be true. A journal on the internet - I will be busy on this - let's make it the next gateway for cold fusion. Then when one types "cold fusion" one will find lots of companies selling software with internet security.

We need to write papers on cold fusion to Nature, Science, Physical Review Letters - and if they are rejected we need to ask why - the editor needs to have a good reason.

In Italy there is an official programme funded by the government - small but it could be a start.

A. TAKAHASHI said;

To summarise the key facts;

a) Almost confirmed;
4He in correlation with excess heat - McKubre, Isobe, De Ninno, ..

b) Nearly confirmed;
Transmutations - Warner, Iwamura, Mizuno, Miley, De Ninno, ....
Photofusion - Takahashi

c) In progress;
Cold fusion theory - Hagelstein, Chubb, Del Giudice, Violante, Hora,

d) Heat
Large excess heat and products of glow discharge - Mizuno,
New Hydrogen Energy, NHE, was wrong - Miles, Fleischmann.
(I have no responsibility to answer - perhaps someone in Tokyo)

e) Neutrons and charged particles - Kasagi, Lipson, Karabut, Isobe, Wang

f) Loading with deuterons in thin wire - Coehn-Ahansohov effect now called the "Preparata effect" in memory of him.

The ICCF meetings will continue in the 21st century - the second phase, as Fleischmann says.

Noted that the attendance at ICCF meetings is decreasing with time. To attract more people, science is not enough, we need industry people. Also young people who do not reject "crazy" ideas.

ED STORMS said;

We need reproducibility and we need a theory - both at the same time. Initially Palladium was chosen as a base for heat experiments, but palladium is one of the most irreproducible metals known to man - it was a poor choice. Others such as Pt, Au, Ni, or Ti are better and also absorb large amounts of hydrogen.

There is a problem that many theories of cold fusion prefer other materials. Suggest that any theory based on palladium alone must be wrong from the experimental results. Any theory of cold fusion must work for all materials.

There should be a Web site which contains all information on the field, including accounts from this conference. People are asked to contribute.

We need to exchange samples of materials, especially if they work. This despite priority claims - does it matter if we make only $50,000,000 instead of $1,000,000,000? Have found that if people discover how a material works, they stop talking and do not tell you.

The Web site would be called; www.alteng.org

R.A. MONTI said;

This meeting considers only one aspect of a large field called Low Energy Nuclear Reactions, LENR, which began in France in the 1960's. Even the name of cold fusion is not new. It is a large field that you are starting to discover. It started in 1938 when a biologist, Kervoran, discovered fusion. The term cold fusion is not appropriate. There are important biological and geological effects - this is a wide field and "cold fusion" is inappropriate.

F. SCARAMUZZI said

Fusion is the historical name used by Fleischmann and Pons. As thermonuclear fusion was used for hot fusion, cold fusion is the best name.

EUGENE MALLOVE said;

I very much agree with Jean-Paul Biberian, we have a Cinderella complex.

Agree that there were more attendees at ICCF-7.

We must have demonstration units. The single missing unit is a reproducible cell. It should be widely available, even if it is from CETI. As a media person, we must have 10, 100, 1000 of them working. We do not want the Cinderella part.

While we should perfect basic science, we need illustrations which would give the whiff of money.

After the brunch, I will show the video of my book "Fire from Ice".

The famous author, Charles Beaudette's book is now available and can be purchased now - I do not want to take copies back to the States.

ROBERTO ANDREANI said;

I am responsible for a large lab of ENEA for thermonuclear fusion, hot fusion, and have the responsibility of getting ITER built. I will soon go to Garching near Munich for this.

In 1989 in Italy, I was working on fusion but we had to look at possibilities. Only heard of science problems - when one talked of cold fusion, it was not popular.

For the most common fusion objectives, one needs the production of neutrons. Best reaction is proton-Boron which gives off no neutrons.

Please accept my opinion. We work in extreme scientific ways. The Cinderella complex can be overcome by good Science.

It was said "almost confirmed" - I will tell my colleagues. The measurements must be absolutely right. It must be possible to do in one lab and repeat in another lab, a perfectly comparable experiment. I have been impressed by the strong will of the people here.

In hot fusion we have to fight strong opponents for reasons that I find debatable.

I wish you good success.

You have a strong opposition, therefore you must do experiments that are beyond doubt.

FRANCESCO SCARAMUZZI said;

Agree that we must be more positive. Accept the point that we must exchange work and make checks. The reason that it is not done, is not that we are unwilling, but lack of money.

JOHN FISHER said;

About theories - there are many with lots of arguing. It is not necessary that a theory is correct - after all, Columbus thought he was going to India. Pons and Fleischmann had a theory, and had the energy and courage to test it - their theory was useful. Without them, how long would it be before anyone else tried - a decade? a century?

I think most theories are wrong, but all are useful.

It's tough being a theorist, referees are down on you, but we press on.

TALBOT CHUBB said

There are already examples of transfers - of 4He by SRI and now of 3He.

JEAN-PAUL BIBERIAN said;

Biological transmutation is important. I have done experiments on it with sprouting seeds. There is also the production of iron and other metals. In 1799, it was discovered at the Vaudin (?) street in Paris by a very famous scientist

We have booked a First International Workshop on Biological Transmutation in Geneva. We have no funding and a non-perfect organisation. We will open a web site.

The 21st century will be very exciting!

LI XING-ZHONG said

Ten years ago, I was a visiting scientist for fusion in Austin and had a telephone call from Prof. Scaramuzzi asking me to be a member of the International Advisory Committee for a cold fusion meeting - realised that I would be a hot potato.

Now ICCF-9 will have as its main themes;
- In theory - coherence
- In solids - reproducibility - most important
- In research and development - NHE? heater? based on "heat after death"
- Cold and hot fusion should merge.
What we want is green fusion energy without nuclear energy.

Note that the above five Concluding Talks plus comments, were given by Believers in cold fusion.

3. FUNDING

3.1 GENERAL - ESTIMATE OF MINIMUM TOTAL FUNDING

True Believers in cold fusion frequently say that they would have succeeded in demonstrating it's existence if only they had been given adequate funding. Often they are convinced that there exists a plot by oil companies, the scientific establishment and others to destroy cold fusion to safeguard their own interests. We will recall some of the facts and budget estimates to see whether the total funding was adequate or not.

The first major supplier of funds was the State of Utah who gave $5,000,000 to the National Cold Fusion Institute, NCFI, which was set up in Salt Lake City with Stan Pons working full-time and Martin Fleischmann as adviser. Despite these advantages, Pons left unannounced and it was hinted that he was in the South of France. Then NCFI collapsed.

The UK research establishment, Harwell, were informed by Fleischmann before the Utah press conference on 23 March 1989, and made a major effort with a multidisciplinary team headed by an electrochemist who was a friend of Fleischmann. They could not repeat the P&F results using what they believed to be identical cells, and when they used the best technology, they found no excess heat nor emitted articles. These experiments cost a half million pounds and used four million pounds worth of equipment.

The Electrical Power Research Institute, EPRI, which has a budget of some $600 million per year, and which represents the industry, has spent some $10,000,000 on cold fusion of which the largest part, over $6,000,000, went to McKubre's group at the SRI. They stopped funding a few years ago.

Mr. Toyoda, the President of the Toyota car company was enthusiastic as he considered that oil would not last for ever, and the company should search for substitute energy sources. Some $40,000,000 was spent over eight years. Two parallel laboratories were set up by the Toyota research company, IMRA, one in Japan and the other in the South of France in the Sophia Antipolis Science Park near Nice. The French lab had the advantage of Pons full-time and Fleischmann as consultant. Security was exceedingly tight and hardly anyone visited the lab despite the Fifth ICCF conference being held nearby in Monte Carlo. At the ICCF-6 meeting held in Hokkaido, the French lab reported small heat excesses but the lab in Japan reported no excess heat. When asked the reason for the inconsistent results, no answer was given.

The ICCF-3 meeting was held in Nagoya in 1993 and on the first day there was an announcement by Nippon Telegraph and Telephone company, NTT, that they had solved the problem of reproducible cold fusion (the shares of the company rose by $8 billion that day but quickly returned to the long term trend). The Japanese Ministry of Trade and Industry, MITI, announced the setting up of a national laboratory in Hokkaido where government workers plus workers from some 20 major Japanese companies and from universities, would do research. The laboratory was very well-funded and equipped. The organisation was called New Hydrogen Energy, NHE, thus avoiding the words "cold fusion". It was said that $30,000,000 would be invested but after finding no evidence for cold fusion, (presented at the ICCF-6 meeting in Hokkaido), the NHE was terminated after four years and the loss was declared to be $20,000,000. However this loss was probably only the government loss - it is not known how much the companies invested.

The French government Commission de l'Energie Atomique, CEA, supported a relatively small effort at Grenoble but at Lerici it was learnt that this has been terminated and no results were presented at Lerici.

The US Naval Weapons Research Lab. at China Lake has supported cold fusion strongly and has done many experiments but is said to have stopped activities in 1995. The amount spent on cold fusion is unknown.

The Italian National Alternative Energy, ENEA, has supported the Frascati laboratory of Prof. Scaramuzzi since 1989. Its new Director, Carlo Rubbia provided a new laboratory at Frascati for Prof. Preparata.

Many industrial companies have invested heavily in cold fusion but never disclose how much was spent. Still more companies have invested smaller sums to keep a watching brief.

The countries involved are not widespread but are concentrated in just five nations - USA, Japan, Italy, China and France

It is impossible to give a reasonable estimate of the total amount of money that has been devoted to cold fusion, but a lower limit would be a hundred million dollars.

At present the only official support appears to be from ENEA. On the other hand, the company, ENECO, which was set up to collect all the patents from the original cold fusioneers - Fleischmann, Pons, et al. - and to raise funds for further cold fusion research and development - appears not to be active. At the previous meeting in Vancouver in 1998, F. Jaeger of ENECO,was skilfully busy with potential investors and provided funding for many activities, but he was not at Lerici this time. There seemed to be fewer investors now.

At ICCF-6 meeting in 1996 in Hokkaido, a special session was scheduled then cancelled, for the Clean Energy Technology company, CETI, with Dr. Patterson and C. Redding as promoters and with Miley and Claytor offering supporting results. But at ICCF-8, the promoters were in attendance, but were not presenting any results - they said they were waiting.

One company that has been successful in raising money is Dr. Mills and his BlackLight Power Company - see below.

3.2. BLACKLIGHT POWER - A FINANCIAL SUCCESS STORY?

3.2.1 GENERAL - HISTORY, HYDRINOS

Back in early 90's, Dr. Randell L. Mills was associated with cold fusion groups and at a press conference at Lancaster, Pa, he announced [1] that he had performed a thousand experiments obtaining heat out which was 40 times that of heat in. He used nickel in an aqueous solution of KCO3, and he believed the heat was chemical not nuclear. Patents had been applied for. He was a medical researcher with a medical degree from Harvard. He then developed a new quantum theory which he published in a book entitled "The Grand Unified Theory of Classical Quantum Mechanics", 1048 pages, $80. The essence of this theory is that while the hydrogen atom has its known energy levels with n = 1, 2, 3, .... etc., Dr. Mills believed that the apparent ground state was not the true ground state but there were another series with n = 1/2, 1/3, 1/4, ... etc. so that the electrons could drop to these lower orbits thus releasing energy. And this energy released would be "in excess of the energy required to start the process".

Mills then started a company called BlackLightSM TM Power, Inc. This company "has raised over $22 million in equity capital since its inception. Its current assets of plant and equipment are worth in excess of this amount, and the company also has over $9 million in cash." This would seem to indicate clear financial success. "BlackLight has purchased a new corporate headquarters and chemical R&D facility near Princeton, New Jersey. This 53,000 square foot building, located on 11 acres for expansion should allow the company to grow." Currently, the Company has 23 full-time employees, the majority of whom are scientists, including 8 Ph.D.'s. The company is looking to employ 75 scientists and technicians as well as 25 management and support staff within the next 1 - 2 years."

Further quotations are given below from its web pages; http://www.blacklightpower.com Also the company "believes it has developed a new hydrogen chemical process that generates power, plasma, and a vast class of new compositions of matter." "The lower-energy atomic hydrogen product of the BlackLight Power Process reacts with an electron to form a hybrid ion which further reacts with elements other than hydrogen to form novel compounds, hydrino hydride compounds (HHCs), which are proprietary to the Company." "if the Company's data proves correct, the novel compositions of matter and associated technologies have far-reaching applications in many industries including chemical, electronics, computer, military, energy, and aerospace in the form of products such as batteries, propellants, solid fuels, munitions, surface coatings, structural materials, and chemical processes."

"The Company has developed hydrogen gas energy cells that operate at temperatures in excess of 1200 degrees Fahrenheit, produce energy in excess of 1,000 times that of known chemical reactions of hydrogen, and achieve power densities similar to those of many electrical power plants (approximately 100 mW/cm3)."

Please note that the words "cold fusion" do not appear despite Mills' impressive 1991 claims of forty times more heat out than in.

3.2.2. PATENTS, POSSIBLE IPO "The United States Patent and Trademark Office issued Patent #6,024,935 on February 15, 2000 with 499 claims which broadly covers the Company's advanced gas energy cell. The Company has paid the issuance fee for six additional US patents." "The Company recently executed a two year agreement with Morgan Stanley to serve as the Company's investment banking firm. The Company's goal is to be public within the next two years." There has been discussion among critics of cold fusion, as to what would happen if the Company were to attempt an Initial Public Offering, IPO, as then SEC rules would apply.

3.2.3. VERIFICATIONS

"The Company's plasma, power, and chemical technologies have been confirmed by 26 types of tests at over 25 independent laboratories as summarised in Table 1 'Summary of Independent Tests'." This looks pretty impressive, however on the Sci.Physics. fusion pages people like Dieter Britz have been trying to verify these claimed confirmations, and have found it difficult as frequently only the name of the institution is given and not the name of the person or the year.

On the Web pages, a prominent heading is Astrophysics - this states; "The detection of atomic hydrogen in fractional quantum energy levels below the traditional "ground" state - hydrinos - is reported by the assignment of certain lines obtained by the far-infrared absolute spectrometer (FIRAS) on the Cosmic Background Explorer." So I asked a friend who is a senior member of the Cosmic Background Explorer, COBE, experiment about this. He wrote; "Their claim about COBE FIRAS is off-base. There are lines in the FIRAS spectrum from all along the Galactic plane. When I looked at them, they could be all explained as CO, C, etc. known emission lines. Note that the energy levels in the range 1 - 90 cm^-1 for the frequency (0.01 - 1 cm wavelength) is quite low and correspond mostly to rotational levels. BLP explains this with spin-nuclear hyperfine levels for the hydrino atom. Most of these lines have to be there from interstellar molecules and represent the major cooling for interstellar clouds." In other words, there is no need for hydrinos.

3.2.4. LEGAL LETTERS

Bob Park who has just published a book "Voodoo Science", has written in his Whatsnew articles that many prominent physicists, including Nobel laureates, who had criticised Mills' hydrino theory and claims, had received lawyers' letters asking them to "stop engaging in further defamatory and disparaging activities concerning BlackLight and Dr. Mills."

This is very reminiscent of the letter from Pons' lawyer, C. Gary Triggs to Mike Salamon, after Mike had done an experiment in Pons' lab and published in Nature that there was no evidence for gamma or neutron emission. The letter said "Please be advised that any damages suffered by my clients proximately caused by any act or omission on the part of yourself or any other coauthor of the subject paper will not be tolerated. I have been instructed by my clients to take such legal action as is deemed appropriate to protect their interests in this matter." Frank Close was also honoured by an unpleasant letter from Triggs.

These affairs caused Nature to show [2] a cartoon with the caption "A single hydrino can produce enough energy to keep an expensive law firm running for a year".

3.2.5 FUNDAMENTAL WORRIES

Many objections have been made against Mills' hypothesis. In particular for it to be true, then an incredible number of experiments have to be wrong - in particular, scattering experiments with electrons, for example, should have shown the new spectral lines caused by the fractional orbits.

4. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS AND TECHNIQUES

4.1. REGIONALISATION OF RESULTS

At the APS meeting in May 1989, I reported that the positive and null results lay in separate parts of the globe. This regionalisation has become more marked with time. Scaramuzzi said in 1992 at Nagoya that "Cold fusion stops at the Alps." Since then it slid round them and the CEA lab in Grenoble reported excess heat but this has now stopped. Also Jacques Dufour in CNAM in Paris claimed excess heat but when I visited him, I was very worried that his apparatus was at different temperatures in different rooms and had poor insulation, but he has now changed it in some way. In Spain there was one episode of neutrons probably due to a faulty BF3 counter - they are most unreliable. So now Western European cold fusion effects are only in Italy and in Paris. They are also claimed by a few groups in the USA and more groups in Russia, Japan and China, but not apparently in other countries.

4.2. CALORIMETRY

The Japanese government made a major effort to study cold fusion and set up the New Hydrogen Energy, NHE, organisation with a budget of $30 million over 4 years. The lab combined government and industry. A series of careful experiments were carried out to repeat the Fleischmann and Pons experiments with them as advisors, plus new experiments. They found no excess heat or any other anomalous effects. The NHE lab was closed down and it was said $20 million had been spent

Melvin Miles of the Naval Warfare Research labs at China Lake went there and tried to repeat some of the experiments while Fleischmann studied the calculations used.

After Miles spoke, Ed Storms stated that from his experiments, it was unsafe to use a heater pulse to calibrate the cells. Fleischmann said "Ed, you are wrong" and that he would explain next day. But next day, his explanation was all about mathematical calculations and did not answer Ed.

Miles said that the NHE people had stated that the errors were (+/-200) mW while he claimed that the errors were only (+/- 20) mW. This was already said at ICCF-6 in Hokkaido when the NHE people noted that the fluctuations claimed as excess heat by Fleischmann were all within their errors. Further they stated that the distribution of fluctuations gave a perfect Gaussian distribution with three standard deviation limits of +/- 2.3% with no indication of excess heat occurring spasmodically

Morrison said that at Provo in 1990 and at ICCF-3 in 1992, he had tried to define the conditions for obtaining results that would convince sceptics. The two major requirements were;
1. Do good experiments
2. Try to prove yourself wrong.

An example of how not to do it, is the excess heat claims [3] of Focardi et al. Basically they heat a nickel wire to 500 C, measure the temperature with vacuum and with hydrogen gas around the wire and deduce excess heat which they say comes from the hydrogen entering the nickel and fusing. They were soon sponsored by industry. They have very few temperature measurements. The basic question is "is it fusion or a failure to understand heat transfer?" Hydrogen is the second best heat conductor. I suggested several years ago that a simple way to resolve the question, would be to use helium instead of hydrogen since helium does not fuse but does conduct heat almost as well as hydrogen. They have not done this test despite letters, Faxes, phone calls and direct discussion. This experiment has been repeated carefully by another Bologna group [3a] who could not reproduce the claimed results of Focardi et al.

To do good calorimetry, one should use a null measurement like the Wheatstone bridge - that is, the apparatus should be completely isolated from the outside by surrounding it with a bath of water kept at a fixed temperature by an electrical heater. If the cell gives out excess heat, this will tend to raise the temperature of the bath and to compensate, the electrical heating is reduced - this measures the excess heat. And there is no interchange with the surroundings. Of all the experiments described here, except one, the apparatus could be affected by the room temperature. For example, McKubre's poster describes the importance of the mathematical model used to separate off room temperature fluctuations.

It might be thought that room temperature fluctuations could not be important, but usually the palladium piece used is extremely small, e.g. 0.04 cm3 for F&P. Naturally Fleischmann objected while Storms declared that he had not said it was impossible to use a heater pulse to calibrate, but one had to be very, very careful.

The essential point is that experimentalists should do experiments instead of trying to obfuscate with mathematical models using non-linear regression analysis with Kalman filtering (at ICCF-3 in Nagoya, when I asked all people who have found excess heat, if they also had used a non-linear regression analysis, no one put up their hand).

The second point is that scientists, when they have a result, generally do not rush into print or press conference, but first try to find any mistake and check that if their result is correct, what would be the consequences, and to do checks on these consequences. For example, if it works for a very small volume, 25. 10^-6 cm3 for George Miley, then they should worry that a small effect could change the result and so they should repeat with a bigger piece - one gram, 10 grams, etc.

One worry about P&F's 1989 claims, was that the hydrogen and oxygen produced at the electrodes were recombining inside the cell which would give apparent excess heat in the cell - this was a worry as the electrodes were so close together in the tiny cell. They claimed that their calculations had shown that there was no recombination - but they did not do any simple experiments to demonstrate this. But after Steve Jones realised that there was no cold fusion, his colleague in Provo, Lee Hansen, did experiments. Firstly, he moved the electrodes apart and the excess heat decreased to zero. Secondly, with the electrodes in the close P&F position, he obtained excess heat but then as he blew in nitrogen gas between the electrodes, the excess heat ceased. Now why have P&F not done these simple experiments instead of doing calculations based on doubtful assumptions? And others who claim excess heat - have they seriously tried to prove themselves wrong?

It should be noted that groups which have made null measurements using a calorimeter with external water bath kept at a constant temperature, have found no excess heat and no particle emission.

4.3 NEUTRONS

On the 23 March 1989, the observation of neutrons formed the best experimental evidence that a nuclear reaction was taking place and justified the name "cold fusion". Jones claimed only neutrons. Pons and Fleischmann, P&F, showed a very impressive peak of gammas from the absorption of fast neutrons by protons - unfortunately the peak was at 2.5 MeV which agreed with their calculations. However at Harwell on the 28 March, it was pointed out to Fleischmann that the neutrons have to slow down first and therefore the peak should be at the well-known value of 2.2 MeV. Within two days this peak at 2.5 MeV had moved to 2.2 MeV. Later the neutron claim was said to have been a "mistake". However in 1991, P&F claimed that they were observing 5 to 50 neutrons per second. But now this is forgotten.

Many claims have been made for neutron emissions. Thus in the Gran Sasso tunnel, Italian-American groups have claimed signals but these appear to be from the radon background. The best experiment was in Kamiokande where Steve Jones and Howard Menlove inserted many cells in this huge 3,000 ton detector used for neutrinos - they claimed success but finally it is agreed that no significant neutrons were observed.

Tullio Bressani and his group claimed [4,5] to have observed a neutron peak at 2.45 MeV which they wrote was significant at the five standard deviation level but when he gave the review talk on this subject at ICCF-6, he omitted to mention his own result. This may be because earlier I had long discussions with him pointing out that there was no peak at 2.45 MeV but a very broad enhancement and the increase from 3 to 7 MeV was even more significant, but was only background.

At ICCF-8, Lipson et al. made a similar claim to have observed a peak at 2.45 MeV, but when we discussed, his graph was the same shape as the Bressani graph, i.e. a broad excess from 2 to 7 MeV. In both cases the graph was obtained by subtracting one distribution from another and both have much higher statistics with a very high peak near zero - always an error-prone procedure.

Many experiments have searched for neutrons and found none while a few have found very low numbers.

The overall conclusion is that the balance of evidence shows there is no emission of neutrons from any experiment of the cold fusion type.

4.4. CHARGED PARTICLES AND GAMMAS - GOOD SCIENCE - TRY TO PROVE YOURSELF WRONG

At ICCF-8, there were very few results on the emission of nuclear ash. Claims of neutron emission are discussed above. Helium and other claims are presented in the first section in the words of the concluding speakers. It was noted that copious X-ray emission is expected of 21 keV X-rays which are characteristic of palladium - but none have ever been reported.

There are some reports of observations of particle emission from groups employing glow or spark discharges. This is natural as it is not cold fusion but lukewarm fusion as the fluctuations in the discharges can give sufficient energy to the deuterons to cause fusion as even a few keV can cause fusion as discussed in section 4.6. Note, it is not the average which should be taken but the highest energy since the cross section rises extremely steeply with energy. Incidently, someone was heard to say that one does not need a complicated system as he found that an ordinary car spark plug does perfectly well.

At the cold fusion meeting in Provo in 1990, people told me they were happy when I said that to convince others, it was essential to do Good Science.

In Morrison's 1993 paper[6] "Review of Progress in Cold Fusion", there is a major chapter "Do Good Experiments" where there is a detailed discussion for calorimetry, particle detection, etc. It was emphasised that if one does find a positive result, it is essential to design further experiments to try and prove oneself wrong - this is what normal scientists always do. For example, if an excess heat is found with a tiny 0.04 grams piece of palladium, one would have expected Fleischmann and Pons to repeat their experiments with 0.4g, then 4g, and then 40 grams to check that the excess heat scales with mass, for one could suspect that there was a small error which looks like an enormous number of watts per gram, but with 4 grams of palladium, this small error would give negligible excess heat - but this is not done. Some claim that they must use thin films so their mass is 10^-3 grams, but they do not enlarge all their apparatus to attain even one gram.

There is an uncomfortable feeling that people do not want to check or to prove themselves wrong.

In 1990, McKubre of SRI, agreed strongly with me and said that SRI would now do experiments measuring many species of particles and gammas as well as excess heat. In an account of ICCF-3 in 1992, it was written "Mike McKubre said that the 3C's of cold fusion were Collaboration, Co-operation and Correlation. After three and a half years, there was no excuse for working on a single variable. All of experiments should be addressed and a correlation matrix established, The Harwell work which gave a null result, had correlations, we can similarly get information." Harwell did 127 varieties of experiment, and searched for excess heat, neutrons, gammas and tritons, but did not find any significant signal of them. But in the year 2000, SRI only reports on excess heat and helium - but it is well-known that 4He is very accident-prone ever since 1924 when Paneth and Peters found that they had wrongly claimed helium production from hydrogen, so that every 4He result is criticised. Why did SRI who received generous funding, not measure also some other products where the signature is unequivocal?

Back in 1990, Julian Schwinger pointed out[7] that p-d fusion is much more likely than d-d fusion. It was suggested that the ratio of H2O to D2O be varied from (100%/0%), to (90%/10%), to (50%/50%), to (10%/90%) and finally pure D20. But Schwinger's suggestion has never been tried by True Believers. However Ettore Fiorini of Milan, whom some consider one of the most complete and careful experimentalists in Italy, studied both d-d and p-d fusion during electrolysis with a palladium electrode. Also mechanical straining was added to search for fracto-fusion. No excess heat was found. Also gammas, neutrons, helium, and tritium were searched for, but none were found - this in a lab with a very low radioactive background. Now if Ettore can do such an extensive series of experiments with limited resources, why has SRI not been able to do similar experiments considering that they have been well funded having received over $6 million from EPRI?

In Dick Feynman's famous Commencement Address at Caltech in 1974, called the "Cargo Cult Science" lecture, he says "we really ought to look into theories that don't work, and science that isn't science". He finishes with advice to the new students; "So I have just one wish for you - the good luck to be somewhere where you are free to maintain the kind of integrity I have described, and where you do not feel forced by a need to maintain your position in the organisation, or of financial support, or so on, to lose your integrity. May you have that freedom."

4.5. TRANSMUTATIONS - HOW MANY MIRACLES?

In the first few years of cold fusion, no one predicted that transmutations (e.g. alchemy) would be claimed. Yet at ICCF-3 in Nagoya in 1993, five groups claimed that transmutations had been observed, including mercury into gold!

Still when one considers how many major miracles were already required for cold fusion, why not one more? Indeed it is well established that the first miracle is the most difficult to believe, but once that hurdle is overcome, it is easy to believe other miracles. In 1989, the list of miracles, or major violations of laws of Nature that had been confirmed by thousands of experiments, was;

1. The rate of cold fusion claimed by Fleischmann and Pons, and Jones was some 10^40 times larger than expected. It is hard to explain simply how large a number is 10^40 - suggestions please, for any practical analogies? (the best suggestion so far, is from Frank Close. The radius of the proton is 10^-15 metres. The radius of the Universe now {if10^10 years of expansion at the speed of light} is 10^26 metres. The ratio of the Universe to the radius of the proton is then 10^41.

2. The relative absence of nuclear "ashes". If the reaction was nuclear as claimed, then neutrons, protons, tritons, and 3He should be produced in huge quantities; plus about 10^-6 times less 4He and gammas of 24 MeV should be observed.

3. The ratios of these ashes is well-determined even in muon-catalysed fusion which is cold, but the ratios claimed by True believers, varied widely but not as expected.

4. When Fleischmann was invited to CERN on 31 March 1989 by Carlo Rubbia, after his talk, the first question was from Carlo, who asked if they had repeated the experiment on D-D fusion in D2O, but in normal light water, H2O, as this would be a control and nothing should be observed in water. This was one of the rare times that Fleischmann looked uncertain and he replied it was the next experiment. There were a variety of replies before Pons and Fleischmann agreed that H2O gave no cold fusion. However in recent years at ICCF meetings, many groups, such as Miley's, say they find fusion with H2O and no one comments let alone complains in public though a few of the better scientists say in private, that they are unhappy.

There are a number of other miracles such as biological effects, creating black holes, solving the solar neutrino problem, etc. but as they are not general, they will not be counted.

So the fifth miracle could be the observation of transmutations from one element to another. Most of the claims involve a very small piece of metal which is treated, for example, by electrolysis, and it or other material elsewhere, is examined by a very sensitive apparatus and traces of other elements are detected. Here it must be emphasised that the quantities are very small - so small that some wonder if they were not trace elements existing somewhere else in the apparatus which the electrolyte had transferred to a new site.

It will be recalled that in the whole history of Polywater, the sample sizes were always less than one cm3 - here they are much less. For example, Miley uses five small layers of 1000 A thickness. It would be good to see even one cm3 of transmuted product. Miley also claims excess heat but is severely criticised also for these claims as errors are not considered and instrumentation is inadequate. It may be significant that Miley's work is based on the Patterson power cell, CETI, which could not present any results at ICCF-8 despite selling 40 kits at $3,750 each some years ago. Incidently, Miley uses normal water, H2O and not D2O.

4.6 LOW ENERGY D-D RATES

At Lerici, J. Kasagi of Tohuku University presented results on the measurements of cross sections for deuterium ions hitting deuterium-loaded metal targets with some partly surprising results. Previously F.E. Cecil and G.M. Hale had shown results[8] at ICCF-2 at Como in 1991 where the cross section fell precipitously as the energy decreased towards 2 keV as would be expected from the strong potential barrier effect. Nothing anomalous was observed. The target was CD2 sheets.At ICCF-6 in 1996, Kasagi found that the cross section fell very steeply with decreasing incident energy, but was slightly higher than predicted. He interpreted this difference in terms of a screening effect, Us, and values of 19 +/- 12 eV and 60 +/- 10 eV were calculated for Ti and Yb metals resp. A CERN expert was surprised and considered these values very high.

At ICCF-8, Kasagi again found slightly higher cross sections than predicted and gave Us values of 600 eV for PdO, 310 eV for Pd-black (palladium deposited on carbon balls) and Fe, and 75 eV for Au and TI. These values are very high and merit checks. It may be noted that at the lowest energy of 2.5 keV, the counting rate was one per week. The rates of the products of the reactions found in 1996 and 2000, were normal, that is, the production rate of 24 MeV gammas was about a million times lower than the emission of protons, 3He and tritons - this is in contradiction with True Believers claims that cold fusion proceeds almost entirely by production of 4He plus electromagnetic energy of 24 MeV (a gamma) which somehow converts into very low energy X-rays or phonons which cannot be detected, not even as 21 keV X-rays characteristic of palladium.

In 1996, Kasagi noted the emission of high energy alpha particles which he interpreted as a secondary interaction of 3He with another deuterium giving an alpha plus proton with a Q of 18.35 MeV. It is not clear if secondary interactions were considered in the 2000 data.

4.7 ALCHEMY

R. A. Monti showed a poster entitled "Nuclear Transmutation Process of Uranium". He claimed that a series of positive results were obtained from 1993 to 1995 and then independently, at the ENEA labs from 1997 to 1998 and more tests have now been made. Essentially a mixture of compounds are heated in a furnace to 1150 degrees C. The compounds were listed and include 330 g carbon, 900 g KNO3, 80 g sulphur which are the basic ingredients of gunpowder.

He wrote that when Bockris tried a similar procedure he failed due to "lack of knowledge of elementary alchemy" as he was completely "out of season". "The right season is 25 March to 15 June." Monti tested this by showing that in tests done 4 May and 25 May, he reduced the amount of uranium originally present from 4.39 to 3.07 grams and from 4.56 to 2.5 grams resp. but when he tried on January 8, the uranium was reduced from 5.34 to only 5.08 grams.

It may be recalled that Bockris together with his unusual student, Champion, had some success in transforming mercury to gold, but never talked of a seasonal effect (these adventures terminated when Champion was sentenced to prison for another affair in Arizona).

It would appear that the historical alchemy, transforming mercury to gold, is now replaced by the more contemporary elimination of uranium which has greater investor appeal - Monti said that it was not difficult to find investors. He claimed that Eucan Technologies Gmbh had signed an agreement with ENEA starting in October 1996.

4.8 BIOLOGY AND COLD FUSION

In 1993 L. Kervran was awarded the Ignoble Prize for Physics[9] for his book "Biological Transmutations" in which he argues that a cold fusion process produces the calcium in eggshells.

V.I. Vysotskii et al. of Kiev (abs. 008) reported using time of flight mass spectroscopy to study nuclear transformations in microbiological studies using Bacillus subtilis. The expected reaction was 23Na + 31P = 54Fe in a growing culture in sugar-salt nutrient medium deficient in Fe but containing 23Na and 31P isotopes. The mass spectrum showed that the rare isotope 54Fe was enhanced as expected.

F. Celani et al. of Frascati (abs. 096) reported impurities in the heavy water. Some were bacteria which DNA sequencing techniques showed were of the Rarlstorica family and were exceptionally hard to destroy. These bacteria metabolised the mercury which was used as a thin film of the surface of the palladium to avoid de-loading the hydrogen.

Biberian of Marseilles, said that the First International Workshop on Biological Transmutation is being held in Geneva.

5. MATERIAL SCIENCE

It is many years since Fleischmann declared that cold fusion was easy, just high school level chemistry. As many groups who found a positive result then found that they could not repeat it, they reasoned that since cold fusion must be true, then there had to be some subtle special way of preparing or choosing the electrodes. Hence many groups quickly started a programme of studying the material of electrodes and of ways of loading them with deuterium or hydrogen. At ICCF meetings, a large fraction of papers is now devoted to these material science questions.

A consistent feature of these experimental papers, is that the authors do not read previous publications. There is an enormous literature, even journals, on hydrogen isotopes in palladium and other metals.

Once a Japanese expert, Prof. Y. Fukai, was asked to speak[10] to ICCF-3 in Nagoya. The great problem of cold fusion is that the two deuterium nuclei are too far apart to fuse - because of the large potential barrier. In D2 gas, they are 0.74 Angstroms apart and to obtain the modest fusion rate of 10^-20 fusions per second, a separation of 0.14 A is required. But in palladium crystals, they are even further apart, 2.84 A for the orthohedral placings and 1.74 A for tetrahedral placings! It was suggested that coherent oscillations could reduce this distance but Fukai said their maximum amplitude corresponded to 1 eV which was too small. He also showed that the suggested use of a screened Coulomb potential was erroneous. His talk did not please everyone - one senior theoretician said that "something was missing from the talk - could you tell me why metals exist? You could not answer: And if you would answer, I would shoot it down. People find heat. You think we are idiots but people find things"

Del Giudice presented alternative ideas and after his talk, Ed Storms commented that he had claimed that there were three phases of hydrogen in palladium, alpha, beta, and gamma. But in previous work only alpha and beta phases are described and in a rather different way - there are no references to a gamma phase. Could you please quote any other experimental evidence in favour of the existence of a gamma phase? As always, there was a reply, a flow of words, but could not detect any answer from Del Giudice.

There have been claims that 4He is found in cold fusion by Arata et al. and Case et al. Here activated carbon is employed as a carrier, It is said that helium is not absorbed by carbon but Rich Murray did a literature search and found that Maggs et al. Nature, 18 June 1960 p. 956-958 and P. Malbrout et al. Chem. Abs. 126 148921, both found substantial absorption of helium.

6. THEORIES

Cold fusion has an incredible number of theories all which claim to explain it, but generally, the theories are mutually exclusive. For ICCF-4, I made a list of the 23 theories that were proposed then.

Further at ICCF-3, Rabinowich, Kim, chechin, and Tsarev reviewed [11] all theories and found serious faults in all of them.

It will be recalled that at a previous ICCF meeting, the experimentalists thought it would be profitable to have a comparison of theories and of their predictions, e.g. would excess heat be provided by proton-proton fusion as well as by deuteron-deuteron fusion? However after a compilation was started, some theoreticians refused to give even simple predictions and some walked out of the room - the attempt was abandoned.

This ICCF conference was similar to previous meetings - there were many predictions, most were mutually exclusive, and clear predictions and statements were missing.

Del Giudice presented the theory of Preparata, Bressani and Del Giudice which requires coherence in the palladium metal lattice. He did not respond to the suggestion of Storms at the end, that a theory to be successful, should also explain how excess heat is found in non-metals. Previously I had asked if cold fusion was predicted to occur in ice since it also has a lattice structure, but it seems that this calculation may not have been done.

Drs Talbot and Scott Chubb in their agreeably harmonious double act, presented their approach based on ion band states.

A list of the theories presented at ICCF-8, is given in Appendix 2.

7. PREDICTIONS OF COMMERCIAL APPLICATIONS

As pointed out by several in the Concluding Session, for cold fusion to be accepted, it is necessary to have some commercial application that can be readily purchased and which works reliably. Hence it is worthwhile recalling the previous predictions.

1. July 1989 - zero time. Pons not merely predicted an application but stated that it existed then. This was a water boiler "giving off 15 to 20 times the amount of energy that is put into the cell. Simply put, in its current state it could provide boiling water for a cup of tea". "It wouldn't take care of the family's electrical needs, but it certainly could provide them with hot water year round' said Pons who said he has always believed that the practical application could happen this fast."

2. 1992 - less than one year. Pons working with IMRA (Europe) said he had obtained 1000 kW per cm3 of electrode using a new type of palladium alloy. He expected a practical application before the end of the year.

3. 1992 - one year. Fleischmann said a 10 to 20 KiloWatt power plant should be operational in one year

4. Nov. 1993 - six years. Pons expected that by the year 2000, there should be a household power plant operational.

5. May 2000 - no predictions for 10 years - Chairman of ICCF-8, F. Scaramuzzi.

It may be concluded that the time to a commercial application is receding into the distant future as time passes.

8. BRIEF TOPICS

8.1. US PATENT OFFICE

Gene Mallove explained to me that in the US Patent Office, there are experts assigned to each subject. When a patent application arrives with the words "cold fusion" it is sent to the expert. It is generally acknowledged that the USPO has decided, after due study, that cold fusion comes into the same category as infinite energy machines or perpetual motion machines, and are immediately rejected. The result is the people filing patents cunningly avoid using the words "cold fusion".

There is great prestige if having your application granted a US patent and it helps in fund raising even though the granting of a patent does not necessarily mean that the proposed machine will work as claimed.

The US Patent Office has apparently decided that some patents that have been granted, should not have been approved and they are now trying to withdraw their approval. Naturally the applicants object and now some of them are considering filing law suits.

In Mallove's glossy magazine, "Infinite Energy", it is stated that Thomas Valone had been fired from the US Patent office. He has a curious history. After he joined the USPO, he invited cold fusion believers to apply to join the Office, writing that the conditions were good (canteen, swimming pool, pension, etc.) and said that they could help to approve patent applications for new energy devices. Then early in 1999, he organised a Conference On Future Energy, COFE, under the auspices of the US State department and had invitations sent to foreign embassies. When this was blocked, he shifted and had the same conference organised by the Commerce Department. However people at the department were told that at the American Physical Society's Centennial meeting in Atlanta, March 1999, some thousand people had been roaring with laughter at cold fusion in talks given by James Randi, Bob Park and Peter Zimmerman - the Commerce Dept. sponsorship was withdrawn. However the COFE meeting was still held - it was an unusual meeting with some serious talks about wind energy etc., but also talks on anti-gravity, Zero Point Energy, cold fusion, etc..

8.2. INFINITE ENERGY

There are a few publications devoted to cold fusion and to various forms of desirable energy sources which have a doubtful justification, such as Zero Point Energy, ZPE. The most glossy of them is undoubtedly the magazine Infinite Energy whose editor is Mallove. He was chief science writer at MIT until he split with them and accused some MIT staff of unethical conduct over cold fusion. He is a spin doctor who is very skilled at public relations and exploits fully the slightest occasion such as any favourable statement by a well-known personality who has often not seriously studied cold fusion.

8.3. QED AND QCD

At ICCF-8, a talk was given about quantum electrodynamics, QED, where it was said that there was the mystery of why quarks were not observed. This was a fine talk for the late 1960's but experiment and theory have moved on since. The colour quantum number is now accepted and supported by many experiments. The corresponding theory is called Quantum ChromoDynamics, QCD.

It would be entirely appropriate if at the next meeting, ICCF-9, Asymptotic Freedom and Quantum Chromodynamics were to be explained to us by Dr. Mallove.

8.4. LIBEL CASE - FLEISCHMANN, PONS AND OTHERS VERSUS LA REPUBBLICA

After La Repubblica wrote that cold fusion was scientific fraud, they were sued for 8,000,000,000 lira (about $5,000,000 then) by Drs. Fleischmann, Pons, Bressani, Del Giudice and Preparata. I was asked by La Repubblica to provide scientific evidence for the case. The five Believers lost the case and also had to pay La Repubblica's costs - the judges said that Fleischmann and Pons had lost touch with reality. In 1996 they announced in Nature [12] that they would appeal but nothing further has been heard of this - perhaps because of the reply in Nature[13].

8.5. TOP TWENTY TECHNOLOGICAL FOUL-UPS OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY.

The Ig Nobel Board of Governors, commissioned by the Wired News and the Annals of Improbable Research, have made a list of the top twenty foul-ups involving technology in the last century - they said it was a difficult choice from the several hundred thousand candidates. Number one was Blondlot with his N-rays. Number 16 is Chernobyl while Cold Fusion was 18th.

8.6 PAPERS, NEW BOOK

At ICCF-8, it was surprisingly hard to obtain papers giving the results or theories. There was a small table, later two small tables. Initially the first one seemed to contain only material from Mallove - copies of his glossy magazine with the unusual and unphysical title "Infinite Energy", plus copies of a book that he was selling called "How cold fusion prevailed" - again the title is unusual as few appear to believe that cold fusion has prevailed except the author.

The book was written by Charles Beaudette who says he first went to a cold fusion meeting in 1995 "for a lark" he wrote. However he was impressed - as an engineer. The book is unremittingly biased in favour of cold fusion - it even makes Mallove's book seem almost neutral. Embarrassing incidents like the moving of the gamma peak by Fleischmann and Pons from 2.5 to 2.2 MeV, secondly, widening it and thirdly, increasing the number of counts by a factor of ten, are ignored - they were under stress, he explained. When criticisms are made of results or of disagreements with many previous experiments, they are not discussed, rather the writer of the criticism is attacked but the justification of the attack is not made - "attack the messenger, not the message".

If any copies of papers which were suitable for refereeing by a journal, were left on the table for distribution, they must have vanished before I saw them. In contrast I left out a copy of the review of world energy that I had been working on since 1991 and updated several times, and invited people to contact me if they wished a copy. A few papers were obtained by asking the people who made presentations.

8.7. PERSONALITIES NOT AT ICCF-8

Former regular attendees or major personalities at ICCF meetings who did not come to Lerici for a variety of reasons unknown, apart from Stan Pons, Steve Jones, Tullio Bressani, Carlos Sanchez-Lopez and Fred Jaeger, include; A.J. Appleby, N. Asami, R. Bass, H.E. Bergson, J. O'M Bockris, B. F. Bush, R. T. Bush, F. E. Cecil, T. N. Claytor, S. Crouch-Baker, J. Drexler, Tom Droege, R. D. Eagleton, J. Foos, L. Forseley, Y. Fukai, D. Gozzi, Wayne Green, W. N. Hansen, Nate Hoffman, R. Huggins, J. R. Huizenga, H. Ikegami, B.Y. Liaw, B. E. Liebert, Scott Little, Bruce Klein, G. Kreysa, K. Kunimatsu, K. Matsui, T. Matsumoto, H. O. Menlove, K. Nagaoka, T. Nakata, R. Notoya, M. Okamoto, T. Omura, F. Oriani, M. Rabinowich, M. Schreiber, A. Spallone, D.T. Thompson, V.A. Tsarev, J-P Vigier, Fritz Will, D. Worledge, E. Yamaguchi, etc.

9. FUTURE MEETINGS

It was announced that Prof. Li would host the next meeting, ICCF-9, in Beijing in two years time. The month was not announced but could be again in the spring time.

There will be a meeting in October 2000, in Russia near Sochi on the Black Sea in a holiday area. This is the eighth of the series where all are welcome. Details and list of 7 sponsoring organisations are given in Appendix 3.

The series of meetings in Asti in Italy, will continue. These are private meetings, by invitation only.

10. WILL COLD FUSION CONTINUE?

When the First Cold fusion conference was held in March 1990, there was a joke that the first would also be the last, because it seemed so evident that cold fusion had been disproved and shown to be ridiculous. But this prediction was wrong, for although over 99.9% of scientists think that cold fusion is disproved and ridiculous, nonetheless there is a hard core of True Believers and hopeful investors who have just had their eighth conference eleven years after the 1989 publications of Fleischmann and Pons, and of Jones. Why? Will they continue?

Initially they had a dream which we all have - would it not be wonderful to have a limitless energy source which did not pollute? Yes, but while most consider that such a practical energy source does not exist, these True Believers think that cold fusion has been proved but that there is a conspiracy by entrenched interests to suppress cold fusion, e.g. by refusing it patents and funds.

They are not discouraged by a lack of success of reproducing lab experiments and of making a practical application, despite predictions and even claims (e.g. Pons working boiler[14] in 1989 - we are still waiting for our cup of tea).

Would anything discourage them? Doubtful. There are always willing investors who hope that this is a secret process missed by the mainstream, which would make them very rich and famous. It is the great lottery syndrome - if the prize is large enough, the buyers do not care what the odds are.

There is a saying by Planck that a wrong theory only dies out when the promoters are gone. Well, we do not wish harm to anyone, but of the three original promoters, Jones has re-evaluated his work,found flaws and turned completely against cold fusion, even doing experiments to show where Fleischmann and Pons had gone wrong; Pons for a second time, has vanished and does not attend ICCF meetings anymore; Fleischmann does attend ICCF meetings but has not provided any new work for some years. These defections appear not to influence True Believers. But if Fleischmann were also to drop out?

As cold fusion continues its slow decline, there is a change of direction. Instead of feeling strong enough to stand alone, the media enthusiasts, Mallove, Fox, et al., are linking up with a loose grouping of True Believers in other unusual energy sources such as anti-gravity, zero point energy, ZPE, which to work, would require yet more violations of the Laws of Physics. A recent example was the Conference On Future Energy, COFE. As usual with doubtful presentations, there was a mixture of serious speakers (e.g. from DOE, wind power) whose reliability can be checked, and doubtful ones whose reliability is hard to check. Again there is a worthwhile dream - clean, non-polluting, cheap energy - and under the cover of this dream, some do not mind proposing impractical solutions which have been disproved many times.

11. CONCLUSIONS

I have often looked at experiments which gave results that appeared to violate the laws of Nature which had been established by previous work. Later these experiments turned out to be false, but I have often found it very difficult to see just where the error was. But the fact that I had not detected the flaw, did not mean that the experiment was correct and that the laws of Nature had been violated.

Rather I feel the same as being at a circus watching a magician. Normally he and I know that the laws of nature are being obeyed but there is a trick which is hard to spot. At trick one, I may spot the trick and am happy that there is no problem with the laws of Nature - similarly with trick number two. But suppose at trick three, I do not see how the magic is performed. The magician may say "I won, I tricked you" and it is left unsaid that the laws of nature have not been violated. But suppose the magician says "You did not see anything wrong with my demonstration, therefore it is true. See, I have supernatural powers. The old laws of Nature have been replaced by new laws". And if I protest, I am told that I have a closed mind, am an establishment figure, and do not face up to the happening performed in front of me. But almost all magicians admit that it is all trickery and the laws of Nature are not threatened.

So if someone comes along and says, "Look - excess heat - do you see anything wrong?", then I feel as if I am at the circus, and although I do not immediately see anything wrong, I am reluctant to give up well-established laws of Nature unless the proof is very strong. Here reports on cold fusion happenings are described, especially in the summary talks by True Believers in cold fusion in their words, and then some clues as to possible explanations are offered. How many Elvis sightings constitute a proof?

APPENDIX 1 - PROBLEM FOR EDWARD TELLER

Back in 1992, Edward Teller attended a private meeting on cold fusion in Washington. He delighted the media-aware people, e.g. Mallove, by proposing a new particle which would explain the contradictions of the then cold fusion results - how to have lots of excess heat without commensurate production of protons, neutrons, 3He, tritium and gammas. When I phoned him, he explained that the clue was in the name of this hypothetical particle which in his native Hungarian means "Crazy'. Little was heard of this afterwards.

At the 2000 meeting in Lerici, a friend of Teller attended. If he were to list the properties required of another new hypothetical particle that could explain all the various results of cold fusion experimenters, then the list of requirements would look something like this;

1. Gives heat of cold fusion at a rate 10^40 times more that expected from potential barrier considerations

2. Gives excess heat in cold fusion in both light hydrogen and in deuterium

3. This excess heat should give some 4He and possibly some tritium but no protons, no neutrons (except in certain labs), no 3He (except in certain labs) and no gamma rays of 24 MeV.

4. When the fusion takes place in palladium, X-rays of 21 keV, characteristic of palladium, should not be observed.

5. Transmutations should occur on electrolysis, mainly into stable ground states, but not into radioactive isotopes

6. These positive fusion and transmutation processes should only occur with very small quantities of material, typically 40 milligrams, but not in bulk material.

7. Transmutations and excess heat should also be observed when there is no metallic crystalline structure (i.e. no coherence effects)

8. The cold fusion should occur at both low loading, e.g. by gas, as well as high loading of hydrogen into the electrode. But at very high loadings, obtained using a diamond anvil, no excess heat is produced.

9. Biological transmutations should also occur

10. Alchemy should occur but most strongly in the time window between 25 March and 15 June.

It has also been suggested that cold fusion has an 11-year solar cycle, but this may not be a serious suggestion, so will be excluded to lighten the requirements.

APPENDIX 2 - THEORIES AT ICCF-8

1. Runbao Lu, (abstract 010) "Electron-ion bound state and its introducing of nuclear fusion".

2. H. Hora, G. Miley and J.C. Kelly (abs. 011) "Swimming electron layers theory" - dielectric effects in the metallic plasma.

3. A. Takahashi, M. Ohta, and T. Mizuno (abs. 012) Low Energy Photofission, LEPF with multi-photons of 0.1 to 10 keV.

4. M. Ohta and A. Takahashi, (abs 013) electron-phonon plus heavy electron gives screening.

5. S.R. Chubb and T.R. Chubb (abs. 025) Interaction between ion band states.

6. A.D. Vita (abs 028) Mechanical statistics of a second order phase transition in Pd-metal hydride.

7. M. McKubre et al. (abs 029) extended lattice coherent processes.

8. J.C. Fisher (abs 030) Polyneutrons - mobile droplets of neutron liquid give reactions, e.g. with a 100 neutron droplet and Oxygen, O;
100n + 18 O ----> 102n + 16 O

9. Y.E. Kim and A.L. Zubarev (abs. 033) Ultra low energy nuclear fusion for Bose nuclei in ion traps.

10. V. Violante et al. (abs. 034) Electro-magnetic oscillations produced by coherent oscillations of the Fermi level electrons in the metal lattice.

11. J.J. Dufour (abs. 040) "Hydrex" is a resonance, 1H1 of a proton and an electron (lifetime a few seconds, size a few fm, energy a few eV). Nucleons, ANuZ, plus several Hydrex catalyses alpha particle emission giving transmutations , e.g.
ANuZ + 2 1H1 -----> A-2NuZ + 4He2 + x MeV.
Also e.g. uranium into lead.

12. H. Kozima (abs. 044, 045, 046) Trapped Neutron Catalysed Fusion, TNCF model. Energy band of neutrons interacts coherently with lattice nuclei. e.g.
n + 46Pd -----> 13Al + 33As or -----> 26Fe + 20Ca.

13. A.A Nassikas (abs. 053) "Cold fusion as a Space-Time Energy Pumping Process" based on "Quantum Space Time-Aether".

14. Y.Z. Li (abs. 062) A selective resonant tunnelling model shows that when the Coulomb barrier is thick, can have fusion with no strong neutron or gamma emission.

15. P.L. Hagelstein (abs. 064) Fast ion emission from metal deuterides is explained in terms of a second order off-resonance fusion reaction with the lattice phonons. The strong force between deuterons is viewed as a very high order phonon non-linearity which gives an intimate coupling with phonon and fusion event. A clean separation has been found between the coherent part of the non-linear interaction from the incoherent part giving a collective phonon mode which couples to the coherent part. "The model predicts the possibility of alpha emission from Pd-D with alpha energies up to 21 MeV as reported by the NRL group."

16. Yu. N. Bazhutov and V.G. Grishin (abs. 081) Erzion model of Cold Nuclear Transmutations, CNT. The Erzion is a stable heavy particle which catalyses CNT. They claim to have detected the Erzion in cosmic rays. This will explain many problems such as dark matter in the universe, the solar neutrino problem, ball lightening etc. Numerous applications include transmutation into gold.

APPENDIX 3 - RUSSIAN CONFERENCE AND SPONSORS

The 8th Russian Conference on Cold Nuclear Transmutations, RCCNT-8, will be held at Dagomys near Sochi. from the 4 to 11 October, 2000. The subjects will include ball lightning as well as cold fusion and transmutation.

The full cost is $900 which includes hotel and meals etc.

The sponsoring organisations are;
Russian Academy of Sciences
Russian Physical Society
Nuclear Society of Russia
Mendeleev Chemical Society of Russia
Moscow Lomonosow State University
Russian Peoples' Friendship State University
State Technical University, MADI.

APPENDIX 4. HOW WILL TRUE BELIEVERS RESPOND TO THIS STATUS REPORT?

Some will say it is biassed, part of the Establishment attack on cold fusion. But since I am independent, this is not too serious. Some, the spin doctors, e.g. Dr. Mallove, will scan the report carefully searching for any error or fault that they can detect. Thus the Concluding Talks will get particular attention as Mallove can compare what is written with the video recording he made (and no doubt will offer for sale at a fair price, as he has done previously). Having detected a few faults, they will then declare it is ALL wrong, typically using the phrase "this report is full of errors, for example, .....", thus implying that the entire report can be safely ignored. This report probably contains hundreds of facts and pieces of information, but these will be ignored, and, in particular, there will be no discussions of the inconsistent results such as some people using hydrogen as a blank control for deuterium, while others claim cold fusion with hydrogen - or the list of miracles needed for cold fusion. These commennts will then be distributed by the spin doctors, to their supporter, sponsors, and potential infestor.

Will some lawyer send a cease and desist letter in the Triggs style? I do not know.

REFERENCES
1. New York Times, 26 April 1991.
2. Nature, 16 March 2000.
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4. Botta et al. Nuovo Cimento 105A(1992)1663.
5. T. Bressani et al., NC 104A(1991)1413.
6. D.R.O. Morrison, Fourth Intl. Conf. on Cold Fusion, Trans. of Fusion Technology, 26, No. 4T (1994) 48-55.
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8. F.E. Cecil and G.M. Hale, 2nd Annual Conference on Cold Fusion, "The Science of Cold Fusion", Eds. T. Bressani, E. Del Giudice, and G. Preparata, Soc. It. di Fisica, Bologna, (1991) p. 271-275.
9. Science, 262(1993)509.
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14. Deseret News, Salt Lake City, 8 July 1989.

(C) Douglas R.O. Morrison.

Address for Correspondence;
Dr. Douglas R.O. Morrison
CERN
CH-1211 Geneva 23
Switzerland
Tel 41 22 767 35 32
Fax 41 22 767 90 75
Email; douglas.morrison@cern.ch
NOTE; this paper has no connection with CERN.