From: morrison@vxprix.cern.ch
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Subject: Made a change.
Date: 10 Nov 92 15:31:46 GMT
Article-I.D.: dxmint.9211100957.AA12797
Organization: SF-Bay Public-Access Unix

Dear Colleagues,                                        8 November 1992.
                Am writing up a summary of the Third International Cold Fusion 
Conference at Nagoya, 22 to 25 October. As it is rather long and unfinished, am 
sending this extract which is a summary of my Invited Talk which was entitled;

          REVIEW OF COLD FUSION EXPERIMENTS

and have added the description of the events that followed - events that are
unusual at conferences that are supposed to be scientific. 
    Will send the full account of the Cold Fusion conference as soon as possible
(have added the beginning) while due to pressure of other work, the actual 
paper of my talk will probably not be ready before the end of the year.

                                                        Douglas.

4. SATURDAY 24 OCTOBER, Jones, Yamaguchi, Miles, Iida, Kasagi, Cecil,
Tsarev, Gozzi, Morrison.

Several pages - to come later-

   D.R.O. Morrison gave a review of Cold Fusion Experiments. He first emphasized
the Universality of Physics - the same physics laws apply on earth, in the 
Sun, in Supernova, in pulsars where the density was 10 E14 times that on earth.
He recalled the basic reaction chains in the Sun noting that dd fusion was 
not important, though if its rate was increased by 10 E 40 as some suggested
this might be noticeable. The dd reaction gave a compound nucleus which lasted 
about 10 E-20 seconds before decaying and it always decayed the same way,
independent of its formation. The two main strong decays were to (3He + n) and
to (t + P) with a 1 to 1 branching ratio while the weak decay to (4He + gamma)
was lower by a factor of ten million. This had been shown experimentally at the
Second Annual Cold Fusion Conference by Davis et al. who confirmed the ratios
of 1:1: 10 E-7 down to about 2 keV. Dr. Preparata intervened and loudly said
the speaker was insulting us, this was an academic lecture and was all well 
known. After a pause the speaker continued and noted that these branching ratios
of neutron to tritium of one to one and helium4 being ten million times less
had been confirmed at zero energy by muon catalysed fusion at which subject
Steve Jones was a world expert.
    With dd fusion, the primary products were neutrons, tritium, gammas, 4He,
3He and protons while an important secondary product was X-rays of 21 keV 
produced when energetic charged particles such as 3 MeV protons, passed through
palladium. The first four of these (n, t, gammas, 4He) all had major problems 
due to the ease of artifacts producing false readings. However 3He, protons and
21 keV X-rays were relatively clean and reliable measurements.
 As Cold Fusion is potentially so exciting, many fast experiments have been done
and presented before all checks have been made. Corrections and retractions 
are not always presented using the same media. The problem is how to get a 
fair unbiassed set of data to review. Have used the bibliography of Dieter Britz
which most people consider unbiassed. He takes only papers which have been
published and which therefore have been refereed. The set is up to 3 October 
1992. It contains 728 relevant papers of which 256 are experimental results,
235 are theory and 233 are Others( 64 reviews, 76 technical, 33 comments, 
6 rebuttals and 38 repeats). The Experimental papers were 86 positive(ie
supporting the existence of Cold Fusion) and 136 null papers (finding 
no evidence and giving upper limits) while 34 were indecisive or contradictory.
There was a problem that some papers were very poor (eg 2 standard deviation 
effects, no hydrogen control, no calibration, only one neutron counter, no
check for artifacts, etc.) but to be as kind as possible to Cold Fusion, and to 
avoid any accusation of bias, all were taken as evidence of Cold Fusion if the 
authors said they were evidence.
    A page of 11 figures was shown giving firstly the numbers of papers as a
function of the year - for experimental papers there were 72 in 1989(9 months),
128 in 1990, 51 in 1991 and 8 in 1992(9 months). Of the 8 in 1992, 6 were null,
one was positive and one was indecisive. Thus it can be seen that interest in 
Cold Fusion peaked two years ago and is fading fast.
    Secondly on this page, the numbers of results for each kind of effect 
(excess heat and nuclear products) were given. For each effect the number of 
null results was greater than the number of positive results. For the case of 
the three products which were relatively free from artifacts, the numbers were;
Protons - 11 null and one positive
3He - 8 null and one positive
X-rays - 7 null and zero positive.
   Although one says "do good experiments", many are still inadequate.
To list these is unsocial, hence the other alternative was adopted and good 
experiments were selected. One criterion is number of effects measured - it was
shown that when many factors (eg excess heat, neutrons, tritium etc.) are 
measured simultaneously, null results are much more frequently obtained.
Again the 728 papers listed were studied to see which ones Dieter Britz had
considered as "expert" - note this was his opinion, not that of the author.
The names of the first author of 'expert' papers are; Aberdam, Armstrong, Bacej,
Baranowski, Bennington, Besanbacher, Blaser, Bulloch, Case, Cheek, Chemla, 
Divisia, Flanagan, Gottesfeld, Hayden, Ilic, Kreysa, D. Lewis( not the Lewis
from Caltech), McCracken, Menlove, Morrey, Naerger, Olofsson, Paneth, Porter, 
Riley(who died tragically), Rugari, and Williams. It is to be hoped that 
serious students of Cold Fusion have already read most of these papers, or if 
not, will do so soon. These papers are classifed as one positive, 19 null, 
2 unclear and 6 technical. 
    Another criterion of good experimental technique, is that the authors make
a point of saying that they looked for artifacts. Dieter Britz mentions 18 such
papers which are composed of one positive, 14 null, 2 unclear and one technical.
Again most careful workers do not find any Cold Fusion effects.
    As loading is said by many to be crucial in achieving positive Cold Fusion 
effects, the 728 papers were scanned for values of loadings measured. 52 papers
reported loadings - of these 16 were technical and 36 experimental; these 
36 gave 3 positive, 31 null and 2 unclear. Taking only the graph of loading by
electrolysis of palladium, there is a broad peak in D/Pd near 0.8 to 0.85. Many
authors comment that there seems to be a maximum loading. This graph is very 
similar to that of Mike McKubre with a peak in the same place near 0.83, 
but with his higher statistics, it extends to higher values of just 
over one, and also has a much wider tail down to zero(being unpublished the
McKubre results do not qualify). Other results quoted this week are Claytor 
D/Pd = 0.82, Kumimatsu 0.88, Enyo 0.9 and Fukai 0.83. A further point is that
it seems a surprisingly high proportion of experiments with positive results 
do not measure their loading.
    From a review by Ed. Storms, a graph was shown of the log of the number 
of neutrons against the log of the number of tritium atoms - it could be seen 
that there was no correlation, the ratio of neutrons to tritium varying from
one thousand to one thousand million. A different explanation is that if there
are three standard deviation fluctuations in the measurement of neutrons and
three standard deviation fluctuations in the measurement of the tritium, then
such ratios are expected - the reason is that neutrons are measured directly
whereas since tritium has a half-life of 12 years, only the very small fraction
of tritium atoms which happen to decay, are counted during the short time of 
the measurement. That is these results are consistent with there being 
no Cold Fusion, only fluctuations.
    Another graph is of the log of excess power, watts/cm2, against the current
(linear scale); a line is drawn which does not fit the data but does indicate
that as the current is increased there is a saturation in the Watts/cm2 at about
one watt/cm2 which seem contrary to the idea that if only the current density is
high enough, then the loading will pass some critical threshold and Cold Fusion 
will occur strongly. Another interesting point about the graph is that it shows
the original values of Fleischmann and Pons who found considerable excess heat
at the very low current density of 8 mA/cm2 (indeed in their paper they wrote
over 1000% excess heat is obtainable but the only occasion was with their lowest
current density of 8 mA/cm2). The point is that Dr. R.T. Bush finds that they 
obtain excess heat with normal light water but when Morrison asked him whether
this was in contradiction to Fleischmann and Pons who find excess heat only 
with deuterium and believe that it is fusion because they do not find it with
light hydrogen, Dr. Bush replied that it was different because he works only at
very low current densities, 1 to 20 mA/cm2, he said. However it was pointed 
out that Fleischmann and Pons also obtained excess heat in that region with
8 mA/cm2. Dr. Bush then pointed out that he used nickel and not palladium,
but Morrison asked if in his theory, were nickel and palladium not the same -
Dr. Bush replied that they were and therefore light water should have given
excess heat with palladium(please note that the statement of the equivalence 
of nickel and palladium in this context, was a theoretical statement of 
Dr. Bush and not by anyone else).
    It is surprising at this conference that people do not jump up to point
out the contradiction that some people use light hydrogen as a control and 
find no excess heat while others find do excess heat with light hydrogen.
    In March 1989 in Utah, the press conference announced that Cold Fusion
gave both excess heat and fusion products, that is it was a fusion process in 
which mass was converted into energy. There were great hopes of a "Clean,
virtually inexhaustable source of energy" - though it must be said that Martin
Fleischmann demurred and was more cautious. However it was quickly realised that
there was an enormous contradiction as one watt of power should have given
a million million nuclear reaction products per second which would have killed
everyone around, but the measured nuclear products were many orders of
magnitude less - about a million million times less as Steve Jones pointed out.
Thus Cold Fusion claims split into two parts;
a) Excess heat - Fleischamnn and Pons - Watts/cm3
b) Fusion Products - 40 000 neutrons/second according to F&P
                   - 0.4 neutrons/second according to Jones
                   but 10 E12 neutrons/second were expected if fusion.
   An important point is that both Martin Fleischmann and Steve Jones said
that there was no secret - just a simple table-top experiment as one said. Thus
to obtain Cold Fusion there was no need for any dynamic process such as heating,
cooling, varying current as in Takahashi style. It should work just by simple
electrolysis even at low current densities such as 8 mA/cm2.
   Now these two original experiments have been severely contested over the 
years and it is clear that if the two original experiments which began the 
current Cold Fusion excitement, are shown to be untenable, then the very
foundations of Cold Fusion should crumble. In addition to these earlier
criticisms, recently two major results have appeared that would appear
to contradict the two foundation results. It is important to consider them
and their rebuttals.
    Initially Steve Jones et al. reported in Nature in 1989 a neutron rate of
0.4 n/second; this value was re-evaluated later to 0.06n/s. This was using
electrolysis with a palladium cathode. Later Steve and Howard Menlove did 
another experiment with titanium which was lightly loaded with D2 gas, in 
which they claimed large neutron bursts of up to 280 neutrons in a time 
interval of 128 microseconds; they were especially frequent after cooling 
with liquid nitrogen and then in warming up, the bursts were observed 
near -30C.
    Steve Jones, Howard Menlove et al. have placed Cold Fusion cells in the
center of the 3000 ton Kamiokande detector. As the Kamiokande detector
is in a mine (visited it on 21 October when at the Neutrino Astrophysics 
conference held at Takayama and Kamioka - the experiment was impressive) 
and as it has large veto counters and careful control of radon and other 
possible radioactive backgrounds, very low backgrounds are obtained, so 
that the previous values of 0.4 or 0.06 neutrons/second should now have been
very clear. The experiment is described in a thesis by Taku Ishida which is 
admirably written and which explains all the corrections and results in
great detail - it is well worth reading just for the pleasure of its clarity,
apart from its interesting results.
    They started running in January 1991. At first they tried electrolysis 
with palladium cathodes but observed almost nothing, then with titanium loaded 
with D2 gas and again observed almost nothing. The upper limit was about 10 E-4
neutrons/second, ie several orders of magnitude less than Jones et al. claim of
0.4 or 0.06 n/s for 'random' or steady neutron emission.
   With the experiments with titanium and D2 gas and warming up from liquid 
nitrogen temperatures, "bursts" of 2 or 3 or occasionally 4 neutrons were
observed (with an extended interval of 500 microseconds, not 128). The obvious
interpretation was that this was radioactive contamination for uranium
fission can give up to six neutrons and plutonium up to seven which gives 
about the observed multiplicity distribution. Coverting these observed neutrons
into source neutrons gives a maximum burst size of 11 neutrons during
electrolysis. Further when these bursts are observed, it is not at -30 C but 
at room temperature contrary to previous claims. 
    Thus these measurements contradict all the results claimed by Jones et al. 
and by Menlove et al.
These conclusions are rebutted as follows;
a) the random or steady neutron emission is down from 0.4 n/s  to less than
10 E-4 n/s for 1311 hours(gas) and 957 hours(electrolysis), but it is claimed 
that the old data have been studied and it was found that random emission 
only occurs once every 900 hours and therefore the runs were too short.
However this seems to be only the number of hours whereas the weight of metal
in the old experiments was generally small, 88 grams, whereas in the Kamiokande 
experiment it was generally more, going up to 1700 grams.
b) the bursts, 5 in gas and 9 in electrolysis could come from a few ppm of 
uranium, thorium or other radioactive source but measurements in the Canada 
gave a lower amount of uranium or thorium in the metal. However the comparison 
is not easy. If Kamiokande measured only neutrons directly, it would be 
straightforward, but the neutron signal it measures can also come from gammas
which give photo-disintegration of the deuterium yielding neutrons.
When control experiments are done with normal hydrogen, these gammas will not 
give neutrons. Further since there is a threshold of at least two neutrons, the
difference is enhanced. Also the multiplicity of bursts is entirely different 
as previously it extended to 280 source neutrons, not to 11 as in Kamiokande.
    The General Electric paper, Wilson et al., J. Electroanal. Chem 332(1992)1,
includes Fritz Will as an author before he left to become Director of the
National Cold Fusion Institute in Salt Lake City. It consists of two parts.
Part 1 is experimental. It describes briefly a long series of experiments
firstly repeating Fleischmann and Pons's experiments as exactly as possible
(since there is no secret, this is OK), and then variations and improvements
some of which gave very high quality experiments. They find no excess heat and
no neutrons nor tritium nor 4He.
Part 2 is a very complete discussion of the analysis of the Fleischmann and Pons 
experimental data. They find that the excess heat is generally overestimated 
and that control samples using hydrogen which F&P claim gave no excess heat,
should have indicated excess heat if the analysis had been performed as
described. (More details of this are given in the Email "Cold Fusion Update
No. 6).
   The rebuttal of Fleischmann and Pons is given in the next paper, 
J. Electroanal. Chem 332(1992)33. it says that the paper of Wilson et al. is 
"a series of misconceptions and misrepresentations".... "gross errors". Then
follows 20 pages of calculations etc. with the comments;
1) Fleischmann and Pons say that Wilson et al. "have not provided sufficient
information". Agree, but one can ask GE for data and hope to get it. It would 
be good for Science if both sides were to exchange data.
2) Wilson and others say that the use of non-linear regression analysis
and Kalman filtering is unnecessarily complicated (F&P say it is standard but
when the audience at Nagoya was asked if they had recently used a non-linear
regression analysis to obtain excess heat - no one replied).
3) Fleischmann and Pons say that "the precise control of the level of the
electrolyte is hardly feasible" and this justifies the complicated analysis, but
if a closed cell is used, then the level is constant. 
4) This argument between leading scientists is disagreeable - in view of the
crucial importance of the Fleischmann and Pons experiment to Cold Fusion, it 
should be resolved. Fortunately this can be done simply by Fleischmann and Pons
doing a clean simple experiment with few corrections in a closed cell immersed 
in 3 constant temperature baths as was done by their good friend David Williams 
at Harwell using the device used for evaluating the amount of plutonium in 
samples. This is a null measurement like the Wheatstone bridge ie if excess
heat is produced, the heaters that keep the 3 baths above room temperature,
are lowered to keep the temperatures constant. Thus nothing changes in the 
temperatures so that no elaborate corrections are needed. Loading and 
nuclear products should also be measured at the same time. 
   It should be appreciated that the best way for Drs. Fleischmann and Pons to 
answer critics would be to obtain positive results with a clean good apparatus 
chosen to require few corrections as above.
   Some Conclusions;
1. There is a major separation between experiments which measure excess heat
and claim watts and experiments which measure nuclear products which find
10 E-6 to 10 E-16 watts.
2. The positive experimental claims are highly dispersed and inconsistent 
with one another. Some experiments are poorly designed and artifact-prone with 
the consequence that artifacts are claimed as results. Answer/recommendation is
to do only good fully-instrumented and fully-calibrated experiments that need
few and unimportant corrections. Always measure loading.
3. Several experiments claim that Cold Fusion occurs in normal light hydrogen.
This is in direct contradiction with most previous Cold Fusion claims which said
the reason one knew it was Cold Fusion was because it did occurred with 
deuterium and did not occur with hydrogen. It is not possible to believe 
both sets of claims simultaneously.
4. There are an enormous number experiments which describe the behaviour of
hydrogen and deuterium in metals and these show that the deuterium ions are 
further apart in metals than in D2 gas - as described also by Dr. Fukai.
5. The two original experiments of Fleischman and Pons and of Jones et al.,
are contradicted by the General Electric Company's paper of Fritz Will and
others and by the Kamiokande experiment of Jones et al., respectively.
6. It has been said that if Cold Fusion has a 1% chance of working, then it 
is worth further study. But the best estimate is not 1%. If one accepts the
results from the excellent Kamiokande experimental limit of 10 E-4 neutrons 
per second, then the limit is not 1% but 10 E-14% or one hundredth 
million million of one percent.

5. AFTER MORRISON'S TALK
     After Dr. Preparata's loud intervention, the rest of Morrison's talk was
heard in silence, but after he finished the Co-Chairmen said nothing, but the
Conference Chairman, Dr H. Ikegami moved swiftly across and removed deftly the
microphone from the speaker's jacket and the battery from his pocket and 
then quietened the tumult and booing by declaring that he wished to apologize 
to the audience. He was surprised that a scientist of Dr. Morrison's 
international reputation could make such a ridiculous talk, and so on. 
A noisy crowd then surrounded Morrison so that it was difficult for 
the TV people to film this from close up. The loudest voices were essentially
Cold Fusion propagandists and it is interesting that none of their questions
or comments were direct to scientific issues but were of the nature "Have you 
looked at the raw data?" One particularly interesting question was "in your 
bibliography, did you include papers from 'Fusion Technology'?" This is 
interesting because this journal has a reputation of being rather kind to papers
in favour of Cold Fusion - for example "Cold Fusion observed with ordinary 
water", "Observation of quad-neutrons and gravity decay during Cold Fusion", 
"Searching for tiny black holes during Cold Fusion" - was shown a photo of a
black hole! The editor says that more papers are refused than accepted. The
answer of Morrison was 'yes' - in order to be as kind as possible to Cold 
Fusion, and to avoid accusations of bias, all journals that claim to have 
referees were taken, including Fusion Technology.
     After a time Morrison was removed from the noisy crowd by an Organiser who
said he should attend a press conference downstairs. There Dr. Ikegami was 
talking in Japanese to reporters. This went on for over an hour and the phrase
"Morrison-san" was heard frequently. Afterwards the meeting broke up and none 
of the reporters asked Morrison any questions though they gave their cards.
    After lunch there was the poster session. As requested, Morrison spread 
out copies of the 21 pages of transparencies on a table. Many gathered round 
and accepted copies of the page with 11 graphs summarizing the number of
results. Dr Preparata came with his two accolytes and started attacking in a 
very loud voice - interestingly enough none of his comments were scientific
and he did not question the accuracy of any of the 21 pages spread out.
One of his accolytes then started loudly and again none of his comments in any
way questioned the pages on the table though he did say he was spokesman of an 
experiment. Dr. Preparata was offered a copy of the page of graphs - he took
it and ceremoniously tore it across and then tore it again and again before 
moving away. Wonder if he also burns books?
    After that the poster session proceeded peacefully with many friendly
conversations and people were happy to have a copy of the page of graphs.
It was noticable that then and the next day, the serious scientists such 
as Steve Jones, discussed but that the principals and other propagandists 
avoided the poster table.






Dear Colleagues,                                         1 November 1992.

                     COLD FUSION UPDATE No. 7.

         THE THIRD INTERNATIONAL COLD FUSION CONFERENCE.

 It was held in Nagoya, 21 to 25 October 1992. 
It started with a Press Conference but ended with a Whimper. 
Cold Fusion is now claimed with Light Hydrogen.  
Skeptics of Cold Fusion verbally attacked. 
Fourth Annual Conference scheduled for Hawaii - scientific?

SUMMARY
     The character of the annual Cold Fusion conference is changing. Only a
few new results were presented as Invited Talks claiming excess heat and 
nuclear products while many other claims were relegated to poster sessions.
These other claims included several groups saying that they observed excess 
heat with normal hydrogen - this is in contradiction with Fleischmann and Pons
and others who said it happens only with heavy hydrogen (deuterium) and the 
proof that it is nuclear fusion is that it is NOT observed with light hydrogen.
There were a number of highly unusual papers available but not all presented,
claiming Cold Fusion in biology, in tiny black holes, and in gravity decays; 
also transmutation was claimed. On the other hand the most complete experiment
in Japan according to the book of Abstracts, has been carried out over three 
years by Isagawa et al. at the National Laboratory for High Energy Physics, KEK
- it was not chosen for presentation and was not mentioned - their evidence 
on excess heat, neutrons and tritium was against Cold Fusion although they 
found many artifacts.
     Near the start of the conference, Nippon Telephone and Telegraph, NTT, 
held a press conference where Drs. E. Yamaguchi and T. Nishioka announced 
that they had for the the first time succeeded in detecting excess heat and 
helium during the experiment with high reproducibility. According to the 
three-page article in Liberation of 27 October, this caused the 
NTT share price to rise by over 11% (note NTT has the biggest share 
capitalisation in Japan and at times in the World - the rise was worth 
several billion dollars). Also it was said that the helium was observed 
with deuterium and not with light hydrogen. However at the Conference 
Round Table, Dr. Yamaguchi said that they had also observed excess heat 
with light hydrogen. It should be noted that at the 1990 AIP conference, they 
wrote "We have also observed the latter three phenomena (Excess heat, plastic 
deformation and explosive gas release) by applying this method to Pd:H systems
having the same heterostructure. This is the first evidence for the fact that
the excess heat production is not caused by D-D reactions." With other 
contradictions, it is probably wiser to consider the press conference as 
premature since adequate checks have not yet been made(see below in Section 4). 
    S. Jones and H. Menlove have tried to detect neutrons in the large 
(3000 ton) Kamiokande detector; with palladium and titanium, upper 
limits corresponding to 10 E -14 Watts were found. The fact that Cold Fusion 
is observed in some parts of the World but not in others - called in an
earlier Email "the Regionalization of Results" - continues with 
Dr. F. Scarramuzzi saying that "Behind the Alps Cold Fusion never existed". 
    An expert on hydrogen in metals, F. Fukai, explained that Cold Fusion 
at the rates quoted, was impossible. D.R.O. Morrison reviewed all the 
published papers (over 700) and noted that the numbers of papers 
published had declined steeply and that only 8 experimental ones 
have been published so far in 1992 and of these 6 found no effect, 
one was positive and one undecided; he concluded "It has been said 
that if Cold Fusion has a 1% chance of working, we should continue. 
But the best estimate is not 1%. If one accepts the Kamiokande limit 
of 10 E-4 neutrons/second which is 10 E-16 Watts, then it is not 1% 
but (10 E-14)% or one hundred million millionth of a percent". Both 
Fukai and Morrison were verbally attacked by Cold Fusion Believers. 
   The meeting finished with a round table discussion where the speakers 
mainly said that better experiments should be done, and then people drifted off 
without any great show of enthusiasm.
    A major question is "Are the Annual Cold Fusion Conferences scientific 
meetings"?

SUBJECTS
1. Before and Organisation
2. Thursday 22 October; McKubre, Claytor, Kunimatso, Srinivasan, Oyama, 
   Enyo, Thompson, Fukai, Sanchez, Chien.
3. Friday 23 October; Takahashi, Mallove, Celani, De Ninno, Pons, Smedley
4. Saturday 24 October; Jones, Yamaguchi, Miles, Iida, Kasagi, Cecil, Tsarev, 
   Gozzi, Morrison
5. After Morrison's Invited talk
6. Sunday 25 October; Claytor, Bockris, Li (China), Tsarev(Russia), 
   Scaramuzzi(Italy)
7. Round Table, end of conference
8. Next Cold Fusion conference - scientific?


1. BEFORE AND ORGANISATION
    The conference was supported by 8 major Japanese Societies - one was the 
Japanese Physical Society which I know well and which I respect, so expected
a normal scientific meeting with a balance of speakers chosen to present
different points of view and expected free and open discussion. Though not 
emphasised, there was clearly some appreciable Japanese industrial support for 
Cold Fusion.
    There were some 320 participants which was substantially more than the 
first two meetings which had about 200 each. Of these 199 came from Japan and 
about a third were from industrial organisations such as Mitsubushi, Toyota, 
Fuji Electrical, Sumitomo Electric, Tokyo Gas, Hitachi, Tokyo Electrical Power
Co., Osaka Gas, NTT, Honda, Nomura, Nippon Steel, Kansai Electrical Power Co.,
Sanyo Electric, Aisin Saiki Co., NKK Co., Central Research Institute of the 
Electric Power Industry, also the Japanese offices of two French companies (Air
Liquide and Cogema), plus the Director and Deputy Director of the Electrical 
Power Division of MITI - note that most were observers and not reporting 
results. This was quite an organisational achievement for Dr. Hideo Ikegami, 
the Chairman of the Conference. There were 55 listed from the USA, 20 from Italy
16 from Russia and the Ukraine, 11 from China and only 19 from the rest of the 
World, (which includes Stan Pons listed as from IMRA in France and Martin 
Fleischmann listed from the University of Southampton and the only person from 
the UK) so that it can be seen that World coverage was non-uniform.
    There were only 23 talks - all of 20 minutes except Stan Pons who had 
30 minutes. There were reviews of Cold Fusion in China, Russia and Italy. Also
there were two panel discussions and the meeting ended with a round table
discussion. From the abstracts it seemed that I was the only skeptic speaking.
75 papers were scheduled for the poster session - again mine seemed the only 
paper presenting a skeptical viewpoint even though most of the World's 
scientists think Cold Fusion is dead. The poster sessions in the afternoons 
were of an unusual format - it was a very large room with many tables and the
"posters" were generally A4 pages which covered the table. Thus the morning 
speakers could cover the table with their transparencies. This system worked
very well and allowed everyone a satisfactory chance of seeing the papers
and of discussing with the authors and with other participants. An afternoon was
devoted to visiting the Toyota car plant - this was very interesting as while
there was some robotization, what we saw was the production chain with many
men doing various operations - they worked steadily but did not seem to be
forced to go at too high a speed. At the end of the production line, the cars
were driven a few metres and tested immediately. (We have had Toyota cars in 
the family for 19 years and they never break down so are thinking of buying
another one next year - what I saw of the production chain reinforced this 
opinion).
    At the spectacular conference dinner, the representative from MITI said that
they would fund research in Cold Fusion in the near future (was told they would 
give about $2.5 million next year and industry would give a comparable amount)
This was not to be taken that they believed in Cold fusion (they call it 
Hydrogen Energy research) but that they thought it was worth further study.
A message was read from Minoru Toyoda who is a major figure in the Toyota car
company. He founded Technova in 1978 and IMRA in 1985. After Technova 
received a joint research proposal from Professors Fleischmann and Pons, he
judged that they should work for IMRA Europe at the Science Park near Nice. 
IMRA Japan is now also working on Cold Fusion research. Mr Toyoda is like 
many of us, greatly concerned by the World Energy problems and desires a 
harmonious development of Science and Technology as proposed by President 
Mitterand at the 1982 summit. His message is a very sincere one. (A review 
paper "World Energy in the Next Century" which is based on my Invited Talk at 
the November 1991 World Clean Energy Conference and presented at the 
1992 Pugwash meeting, was submitted to this conference but not listed).

CURIOUS STORY.
    In the large hall outside the conference room and where the Secretariat was,
a working demonstration of Cold Fusion with ORDINARY water was set up. There
were two cells, one with light water and potassium carbonate with a nickel 
cathode and the other was a control cell. Meters showed that the current and 
voltage were the same in both cells. But while the control was just above room
temperature, the other was distinctly hot and everyone was invited to touch
and see the difference which was quite marked. A very simple direct 
demonstration which impressed some. Steve Jones's graduate student, David
Buehler looked closely and noticed that the lead wires entering the control
cell were much thinner than those going into the "nuclear heat" cell although
it had been said that the two were identical. Steve challenged him to measure
the resistance of the control cell leads somehow. David moved the alligator 
clips from the ends of the thin lead wires to points where the leads
entered the control cell. He saw that the voltage dropped and from this
determined that the thinnest lead had a high resistance so that the wire 
must have been quite thin. He estimated that half the power delivered
to the control cell was dissipated in the air, not in the solution which 
would make it appreciably cooler than the other cell. The demonstration was
removed before the end of the conference.

PS The ski season in the Alps looks promising - good sking yesterday down 
to 2200 metres - November 7 is the earliest that I have skied.

                                         (c)  Douglas R. O. Morrison.
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion