Episode description

Imagine harnessing the power of the sun using nothing more than high school science lab equipment and household ingredients. Desktop cold fusion - it would be the biggest invention of the century! Well, that's exactly what Professors Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann thought they’d discovered in 1989. After experimenting with a palladium cathode in a simple heavy water electrolysis cell, they observed an unexpected rise in temperature. Confusingly, they concluded the solution was nuclear fusion! (Try saying that 3 times fast)

Pons and Fleischmann were so excited that they even made an announcement to the press before having their studies peer-reviewed. Unfortunately, they didn't get the standing ovation they hoped for. On the contrary, their sensational cold fusion announcement was met with an even colder reception. The scientific community quickly doused their fusion fire, proving their 'invention of the century' to be a dud.

But this wasn’t the first nuclear fusion hoax and it wasn’t even the biggest.

Let’s go back to 1951 to a secret laboratory in a forest on an island in a lake high in the mountains. Sounds awesome already doesn’t it? It was here that Argentine dictator, Juan Perón, made the grand proclamation that his country had successfully liberated the energy of nuclear fusion. His man behind the magic was none other than Ronald Richter, a scientist with a dubious past and an even more dubious passport. 

Perón gave Richter free rein to build a nuclear fusion device, with dreams of providing unlimited power (cue Perón drooling) and transforming Argentina into a world scientific leader. After his first laboratory was destroyed by a fire, Richter demanded a more protected location away from spies and potential sabotage. So the construction of a 12-metre-wide, 4-metre-thick concrete cylinder began in a location deep within the country's interior on Huemul Island - aka Project Huemul - literally plunging the nation into a brick and cement shortage!

Unfortunately, when it was complete, Richter noticed a crack on the outside which rendered the entire reactor useless and ordered for it to be torn down. Determined to soldier on, Richter began experiments in a much smaller 2-metre reactor. Lithium, hydrogen and sparks were flying everywhere and on 16 February 1951, Richter claimed he had successfully demonstrated fusion.

And what do all good scientists do once they demonstrate something for the first time? They tear down their experimental setup and refuse to replicate! Richter razed his cold(ish) fusion reactor to the ground to make yet another one.

In the end, Richter’s work was deemed as nothing short of a grand farce, but even these flops had their place in science history. They sparked a flurry of activity in the scientific community, leading to funded projects and continued research in the field of controlled fusion including the invention of the Figure 8 Stellerator (tell me that doesn’t sound like a 1950s women’s exercise device).

Whether you are right or (unequivocally) wrong, science has learned something!

SOURCES:

• El Secreto Atomico De Huemul, by Mario Mariscotti 
• Proyecto Huemul: The Prank That Started It All, by Robert Arnoux 
• The Cornell Cold Fusion Archive, by Bruce Lewenstein 

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