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    "ocrText": "lution is, indeed, in progress around the world. It is called \"cold\nthe Exxon-Valdez grounding, the difficult opening stages of a\nfusion\" energy, but, like many other scientific revolutions of\nmodern-day \"miracle\" was taking place beneath the snow-cov-\ngreat import, the infant discovery and technology is having a\nered Wasatch Mountains of Utah. Thursday, March 23, 1989,\nvery difficult birth. One hopes that the influential readers of this\nbrought a glimmer of hope from a city that had grown up near\nessay will stay the hands of the paradigm-paralyzed critics in\nthe barren flatlands of the Great Salt Lake. At 1:00 p.m. in Salt\nthe scientific community who have maliciously and in some\nLake City, chemistry professors Martin Fleischmann and\ncases illegally obstructed the field at every turn. Whether from\nStanley Pons burned their names into the history of the quest for\nill will, jealousy, or sheer misinformation, the antagonists\nenergy from water. Essentially unknown to the thermonuclear,\n\"know not what they do\" to one of the the brightest promises of\nhot fusion community, they claimed to have achieved what\nour age. Now for the rest of the story...\nseemed to be impossible: power-producing fusion-like reactions\nat or near room temperature-without deadly radiation that the\nThe Stage is Set\nhot fusioneers had planned to use to make electricity from their\nreactors! Fleischmann and Pons, and those who would later\nA\nfter Verne's astonishing suggestion of 1870, oil from the\nbowels of the Earth, not water, emerged as the \"coal of\nconfirm their work, posed an immediate threat to the hot fusion\nthe future.\" We entered the 20th Century and wars\nand physics establishments. The heretics were dealt with as one\nwere fought over this black gold. Even World War II had its\nmight expect. The argument became, \"Since you are not dead\nroots, in part, over the control of oil by Japan or the United\nfrom the radiation our theory expects from your process, you\nStates. That war was ended by fission nuclear weapons, the\nmust be incompetents or frauds.\"\nsequel to a controversial discovery made in Europe in 1938-a\nThe massive Exxon-Valdez oil spill drew deserved national\ndiscovery, incidentally, that was itself almost missed, but for\nattention and outcry, but it did not eclipse the extraordinary\nsome open-minded, concentrated thinking. Fission was the\nnews from Utah about cold fusion-a concept that seemed to\n\"cold fusion\" of the 1930s, sans critics!\ndrop from the sky like an alien intruder straight into the public\nIn 1988, physicist Emilio Segre' reflected on the 1930s discov-\npsyche. At the press conference held at the University of Utah,\nery of fission by Hahn, Strassman, and Meitner: \"Their early\nAmerican Stanley Pons, professor of chemistry and chairman of\npapers are a mixture of error and truth as complicated as the\nthe Department of Chemistry at the University of Utah, and\nmixture of fission products resulting from the [neutron] bom-\nBritish colleague Martin Fleischmann, professor of electrochem-\nbardments. Such confusion was to remain for a long time a\nistry at the University of Southampton, England and Fellow of\ncharacteristic of much of the work on uranium.\" In their\nthe Royal Society, really did disclose an amazingly simple\nremarkable paper of December 22, 1938 in Naturwissenschaften\nmethod to create power-producing nuclear reactions-possibly\nannouncing the fission discovery, Hahn and Strassman wrote,\nfusion-not at hundreds of millions of degrees in imitation of\n\"As nuclear chemists working very close to the field of physics,\nthe stars, but at room temperature from a solid-state reaction.\nwe cannot yet bring ourselves to such a drastic step, which goes\nThe Genie of fusion shrugged in his ancient vessel that year\nagainst all previous experience in nuclear physics.\" Yet nuclear\nand amazed the world. The spring of 1989 will long be remem-\nfission was real. It became a world-changing discovery, relative-\nbered as a time of unexpected shaking, when extraordinary\nly easy to reproduce, but a bit harder to make into bombs (for-\nclaims by groups of researchers in Utah and subsequently\ntunately!). It ended a terrible war and it preserved the peace\naround the world led some scientists, even open-minded ones\namong superpowers long enough for Communism to collapse\nin hot fusion (especially in Japan), to reexamine a decades-long,\nin Europe.\nmulti-billion dollar quest to tame nuclear fusion. The struggle is\nYet as the 20th Century merges into the 21st, oil, coal, and\nto bring this power of the stars down to Earth, much as fabled\nnatural gas have remained kings. The Chernobyl disaster of\nPrometheus snatched fire from the gods. The interest of the sci-\n1986 dealt a devastating political blow to plans for expanding\nentific community and the public at large in 1989 was tem-\nthe fission economy, which might have given some respite from\nporarily galvanized by the idea that a new kind of fusion\nthe tyranny of fossil fuels. Even in peacetime, oil and other fos-\nprocess might soon lead to a way to get the fusion Genie to stop\nsil fuels take their tolls in death and destruction-from burn-\nshrugging and come completely out of his bottle. He's half out\nings and explosions in transportation, to slow deaths from\nnow and will soon be out completely.\natmospheric pollution. Late in the 20th Century, a greater con-\nsciousness about the environment arose, yet still the world\nParadigm Paralysis and Confirmation\nremained in the grip of fossil fuels. Ordinary renewable energy\nS\ntartling events occasionally make us step back to get a bet-\ntechnologies, for all their good, remained much too limited and\nter view of our pursuits and to examine cherished assump-\nproblematic to be the solution to the world's energy problems.\ntions. This often leads to rededication, to unforeseen possi-\nMillions of people continue to die every year from a variety of\nbilities, and to new directions. The shaking of complacency now\nills attributable directly or indirectly to the global dependence\nand then in a positive way is healthy, no more so than in the\non fossil fuel combustion. The threat of global warming hangs\nfields of science and technology, where intense concentration on\nin the air. Whether real or misjudged, the threat has to be con-\nan established course sometimes promotes a too narrow focus.\nsidered. As you will increasingly see, cold fusion energy is the\nSadly, there arose an unusual brutality about the way the cold\nperfect preventative.\nfusion claims and confirmations were treated.\nThe exemplar of all that was wrong with the Age of Oil struck\nConfirmation of the remarkable cold fusion claims of 1989\non March 24, 1989 at 12:04 a.m. In the pristine waters of Prince\nwas not to come easily. Unusual doubt and confusion\nWilliam Sound off the coast of Alaska, the Exxon Valdez ran\n(inevitably termed \"fusion confusion\") beset a baffled,\naground and spilled eleven million gallons of crude oil. The\nbemused, and even outraged scientific community. A long quest\nhorrific, foolish disaster symbolized the ultimate futility of our\nensued to confirm or disprove the claims that nuclear fusion\ndangerous dependence on the planet's subterranean fossil\nreactions can occur in apparatus no more complex than a labo-\nfuels. In what may eventually be considered one of the most\nratory electrochemical cell, in pieces of metal infused under\nprofound coincidences in history, less than twelve hours before\npressure with heavy hydrogen gas, or in other systems. Many\n2"
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