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The Suppression of Fuel Savers and Alternate Energy Resources 467
major universities and commercial organisations have also confirmed the
reality of cold fusion. U.S. laboratories reporting positive results include
the Los Alamos National Laboratory, Oak Ridge National Laboratory
(these were the two U.S. research establishments most closely involved in
developing the atomic bomb), Naval Research Laboratory, Naval
Weapons Center at China Lake, Naval Ocean Systems Center and Texas
A & M University. Dr. Robert Bush and his colleagues at California
Polytechnic Institute have recorded the highest levels of power density for
cold fusion, with almost three kilowatts per cubic centimetre. This is thirty
times greater than the power density of fuel rods in a typical nuclear
fission reactor. Overseas organisations include Japan's Hokkaido National
University, Osaka National University, the Tokyo Institute of Technology,
and Nippon Telephone and Telegraph Corporation, which has announced
that its three-year research programme has "undoubtedly" produced direct
evidence of cold fusion. Fleishmann and Pons are working for the
Japanese-backed Technova Corporation, a commerical cold fusion company
based in France. Eugene Mallove left MIT to become editor of Cold
Fusion magazine.
The Japanese government, through the Ministry of International Trade
and Industry (MITI) has announced a five-year plan to invest $25 million
in cold fusion research. The Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) in
California has spent some $6 million on cold fusion already and budgeted
$12 million for 1992. In addition, a consortium of five major US utility
companies have committed some $25 million for EPRI research.
Some of these research funds are being spent not only on developing a
large-scale reactor vessel for use in public utilities but also, because of the
inherent simplicity and relative safety of cold fusion, the development of
a cheap miniature version for use in the office and even in the home. Even
as Harwell and MIT proclaim their impossibility, prototype ten kilowatt
cold fusion heating devices are already under test and are likely to find
their way to market in the near future.
It is not only the organizations with a vested interest that come out badly
from the story of cold fusion. The press, especially the scientific press, has
acquitted itself poorly. Nature magazine showed how reactionary it can be
with coverage that ranged from knee-jerk hostile to near hysterical. Its
most intemperate piece was an editorial column in March 1990 headlined
"Farewell (not fond) to Cold Fusion," which described cold fusion as "discreditable
to the scientific community," "a shabby example for the young,"
and "a serious perversion of the process of science."
Some sections of the national press were also quick to ridicule Fleischmann
and Pons and wrote pieces that have now come back to haunt their
consciences. Steve Connor, writing in the Daily Telegraph, said that "the