48. European Commission Leads the Way with Accurate ITER Promises
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Sept. 19, 2020
By Steven B. Krivit
Recent letters that New Energy Times has received from the European Commission, on behalf of Commissioner Kadri Simson, indicate that the commission is taking a leading role in the accurate and transparent communication of the promises for and the expected outcomes of the ITER fusion reactor.
On June 15, 2020, we sent our analytical report “The Dark Side of ITER,” to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. The report showed lapses of scientific integrity by a number of people who were involved in promoting the ITER project.
Notable among them was Bernard Bigot, the director-general of the international headquarters of the ITER project. Bigot’s organization corrected some false claims on its Web site two years ago in response to our Oct. 6, 2017, and March 28, 2018, news reports. However, misleading claims on the ITER organization’s Web site remain.
In contrast, two major organizations have recently corrected their previously false claims about the ITER fusion reactor, under construction now in southern France. The European Commission was one of them. Benatas Mazeika, the head of the European Commission unit for nuclear energy, safety and ITER, wrote to us on July 1, 2020, on behalf of President von der Leyen.
Soon after, the commission corrected what may have been the remaining false claims about the ITER reactor on the European Commission’s Web site.
The commission is also responsible for the European ITER domestic agency known as Fusion for Energy. Earlier this year, Fusion for Energy, under the leadership of its director Johannes Schwemmer, published new false claims about ITER. Schwemmer previously advised New Energy Times that he was unwilling to continue discussing the claims about ITER on his organization’s Web site. After being advised by New Energy Times, the Fusion for Energy governing board, which has recently reappointed Schwemmer for a second term, did not respond and did not correct the recent false claims.
Therefore, on Aug. 27, 2020, we wrote to Kadri Simson, the European Commissioner responsible for the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Energy. Simson has oversight responsibility for the Fusion for Energy agency. One week later, Schwemmer made the necessary corrections. Two days later, Mazeika wrote to New Energy Times on behalf of Simson.
Mazeika, addressing the long-standing problematic language used by fusion organizations to promote the ITER project, said that the commission is now actively working with other fusion organizations to develop common language that describes the ITER project accurately.
New Energy Times began contacting the commission about its previous false and misleading ITER claims in 2018. That was during the presidency of Jean-Claude Juncker. Although his office responded several times to our letters, the commission made little progress under his presidency.
For three decades, and more often in the last decade, fusion organizations have developed and used common language to describe the ITER project. But that common language was ambiguous and misleading, causing nearly every person who was not a fusion expert to disseminate false expectations, promises, and hope about the fusion reactor project. Our log shows more than 200 such instances.
Since October 2017, in response to news publications and letters from New Energy Times, most major fusion organizations worldwide have made significant or full corrections to their ITER power claims.
