su-etc
Fusion
a084  0823  23 Mar 89
PM-Fusion,0525
Breakthrough Claimed in Nuclear Fusion
    LONDON (AP) - Two scientists claim to have carried controlled
nuclear fusion in a test tube, using a ''ridiculously simple''
technique that could transform the world's energy resources, it was
reported today.
    ''If their discovery is confirmed, they will have gone a long way
toward taming the forces powering the sun and the hydrogen bomb,''
The Financial Times said. ''These could provide virtually unlimited,
clean and inexpensive energy.''
    The paper identified the scientists as Martin Fleischmann of
Southampton University in England and Stan Pons of the University of
Utah. A formal announcement will be made in Salt Lake City later
today.
    Nuclear fusion is regarded as science's next great frontier in
developing new sources of energy, but has generally been considered
to be years away from commercial exploitation. It differs from
conventional processes in that it fuses atoms, rather than splits
them.
    The Financial Times said the two scientists ''have apparently done
in a simple laboratory what has not been achieved by gigantic
projects costing hundreds of millions of dollars a year.''
    The Fleischmann-Pons experiments technically ''are no more complex
than the practical work done by chemistry undergraduates. They use
electrochemical techniques to achieve fusion of deuterium nuclei
trapped inside an electrode made from palladium, a metal similar to
platinum,'' The Financial Times said.
    Dr. Mick Lomer, head of the U.K. Atomic Energy Authority's fusion
laboratory, told the newspaper: ''We're approaching it with a
skeptical but open mind. We shall be doing our utmost to reproduce
the experiment.''
    Fusion produces little radioactive waste; its material, deuterium,
is abundant in seawater; and fusion reactors are expected to be safer
than fission reactors because the fusion process would shut down if
anything went wrong. One past problem has been safely containing the
reaction.
    The newspaper quoted Fleischmann as saying: ''What we have done is
open the door to a new area of research. Our indications are that the
discovery will be reasonably easy to make into a usable technology
for generating heat and power, but a lot more work is needed to prove
its validity further and then to develop practical generating
devices.''
    He was quoted as saying: ''The nature of the experiment is
ridiculously simple, yet in a way so far-fetched, that we decided not
to raise money from external sources but to finance the early work
ourselves.''
    The paper said physicists ''find it hard to believe the deuterium
nuclei could be squeezed together enough for fusion to occur.''
    In a separate report, The Financial Times said the discovery could
''transform the outlook for the world's energy supplies in the next
century.''
    It said the idea for the experiment originated in the 1960s, and
Pons and Fleischmann began discussing possible test methods while
working together at Southhampton and then at Salt Lake City.
    ''Stan and I often talk of doing insane experiments,'' said
Fleischmann, 61. ''We each have a good track record of getting
impossible experiments to work. In this case, the stakes were so high
that we just had to try out the idea.''
    
 
AP-NY-03-23-89 1111EST
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