Science / Medicine : Deadline on Cold-Fusion Data

The Utah scientist who claims to have achieved cold fusion faces a deadline for sharing some results of his work or he will risk losing state money for research. The state Fusion Energy Council wants chemist B. Stanley Pons to produce part of his research data this week and the rest by Feb. 1.

“Future funding of his research is contingent on his cooperation,” said council chairman Raymond Hixson. “All of us are strong supporters, but can we go on?”

Pons, meanwhile, said in a statement he was resigning his teaching position at the University of Utah to work on his cold-fusion studies full time at the school.

Pons and chemist Martin Fleischmann announced in March, 1989, that they had achieved nuclear fusion in a jar at room temperature. Efforts to duplicate the findings have had varied success and many scientists are skeptical of the claim that the heat reported by the two scientists is the result of fusion.

The state provided $5 million in research funds and the National Cold Fusion Institute was created at the university to help carry on the experiments. Pons and Fleischmann are both severing ties with the institute.