Pennsylyania Researcher Claims to Have Secret to 'Cold fusion'

By A.J. HOSTETLER

Associated Press Writer

PHILADELPHIA (AP) - Experts reacted warily Thursday to the claims of an independent researcher Thursday who says he has solved the puzzle of cold fusion. In a telephone interview from his office in Lancaster, Randell

Mills said his research team has developed cells, based on hydrogen, that have produced up to 40 times the electrical energy put in. Other scientists labeled the announcement "nonsense" and said it runs counter to all known about the hydrogen atom.

John Huizenga, a University of Rochester nuclear chemist who co-chaired the Department of Energy's cold-fusion review panel, said Mill's work "had no basis in fact."

"It just doesn't seem to make any scientific sense at all. It's completely contrary to what we know about atomic theory. It would violate what we know about the hydrogen atom," he said.

Mills' company, Mills Technology, which is financed privately by unnamed sources attributes the effect to a previously unknown reaction that creates a new, smaller form of hydrogen. The explanation disputes much of the quantum mechanical theory that has guided nuclear scientists most of this century.

Mills said his team used distilled water and cheap equipment and solutions to break water into its components, hydrogen and oxygen. Under the theory, the electrons in hydrogen atoms drop to previously unknown energy levels below the "ground state," considered the lowest level under conventional quantum mechanics.

Dropping to these lower levels requires a release of energy as heat. Two years ago, researchers at the University of Utah also claimed to have determined a non-nuclear mechanism for cold fusion. The experiment was widely criticized and never duplicated. University of Utah researchers Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann were wrong in their assumption that nuclear reactions were creating the excess heat, Mills said.

Mills said that as the hydrogen atom "shrinks," the shrinkage can continue, and if heavy water is used, the process eventually could produce cold fusion. Mills said his method could create an "inexhaustible source of energy." "You could essentially run the entire planet on hydrogen,' Mills said. Mills said he is seeking international patents for the process, which he has dubbed "HECTER," for Hydrogen Emission by Catalytic Thermal Electronic Relaxation. Mills said his theory treats large-scale pphysics, described by mechanics, the same. "Physics on all scales are the same," he said. Scientist said they were very skeptical.

Gregory Farrington, an electrochemist who is dean of the engineering school at the University of Pennsylvania, said Mills' atomic theory "sounds flaky," but if the heat output was verified by other scientists, it would be a major accomplishment.

Mills said he experiments will be published in the August issue of the Journal of Fusion Technology. Huizenga said the fusion journal was not considered very respectable. "It publishes all kinds of nonsense about cold fusion," he said. Mills said he announced his findings Thursday because he felt the public ought to know about the work. A complete description of Mills' theory is in a book, "The Grand Unified Theory," written by Mills and John J. Farrell, a chemistry professor at Franklin & Marshall College. Mills said he will present his work at the August meeting of the American Chemical Society in New York City.

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