John R. Huizenga cold fusion collection

In the spring of 1989, two electrochemists promised the world an energy utopia -- clean, cheap and abundant energy without harmful side effects to the environment. B. Stanley Pons of the University of Utah and Martin Fleischmann of Southampton University announced that they had successfully created a sustained nuclear fusion reaction at room temperature in a small jar on a laboratory tabletop. They had duplicated the process powering the sun. Their reported accomplishment had eluded fusion scientists for several decades, in spite of the fact that these scientists were experimenting with extremely high temperatures and large machines, and spending billions of dollars in fusion research. Fleischmann and Pons indeed made heady promises, which if fulfilled, are the stuff of Nobel prizes.

It was the scientific story of the century broadcast around the globe, and made network television newscasts on March 23.... However, the experimental details necessary for scientific evaluation were missing from the press release and early reports, leading many to be both upset by Fleischmann and Pons' "publication by press-release" and skeptical of their claims.

--John R. Huizenga, preface to Cold Fusion: The Scientific Fiasco of the Century, p. vii.