In 1989, Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons announced the discovery of a simple and cheap procedure to obtain room-temperature nuclear fusion. Although there were many instances where successful results were reported they lacked consistency and hence cold fusion came to be considered to be an example of pathological science.[14] Two panels convened by the US Department of Energy, one in 1989 and a second in 2004, did not recommend a dedicated federal program for cold fusion research.