Pining for a Breakthrough : Despite years of ostracism, a small and dwindling army of cold-fusion faithful are ever hopeful.(Brief Article)

Twelve years ago researchers at the University of Utah claimed to have found a cheap and easy way of producing energy from a nuclear-fusion reaction. This was one of the holy grails of physics. Scientists at the big energy laboratories had been trying to harness fusion for decades at staggering expense and had little to show for it. The cold-fusion scientists, by contrast, used a breathtakingly simple setup: a glass jar filled with water, wired like a battery with two electrodes. The result, they claimed, was a small but measurable output of energy--and the promise of unlimited energy at virtually no cost.

It was, of course, too good to be true. Other scientists tried and failed to reproduce the results. The giddy dreams evaporated. Stanley Pons and Martin Fleishman, the Utah scientists, were dismissed as charlatans and became the butt of jokes on late-night television and in physics classes everywhere. Nonetheless, a hard core of true believers has kept up the faith. Next month many of them will convene in Japan to exchange papers and discuss their progress. By most estimates a few hundred researchers (table) are still hoping that the scientific establishment was wrong, and that fusion energy can really be harnessed on a tabletop.

The idea of cold fusion is so elegant and appealing that it's difficult for many to resist. Fusion reactions occur when two hydrogen nuclei, or protons, fuse, thereby releasing energy. To get them close enough to fuse requires overcoming their strong electrical repulsion to one another. This is where cold fusionists part company with mainstream scientists. Physicists at the big labs believe that protons will fuse only if they collide at ferocious speeds, which is why they go to considerable expense to heat them to extreme temperatures. The cold-fusion approach is far more pastoral. Take a beaker of "heavy" water, which contains extra protons, nudge them gently with chemicals, and you've got fusion without the need for so much as a Bunsen burner.

To many researchers, the upside is so large--limitless, cheap energy--that it may be obscuring their objectivity. "Because of the potentially high payoff, there are certainly people who are willing to cling to their belief in cold fusion even though the evidence is to the contrary," says Al Tiech of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. "Once you commit yourself to an idea, it's hard to give it up." Many researchers relish the role ...