July 7, 2019 — By Steven B. Krivit —

Seventh in a Series on the Rutherford Nitrogen-to-Oxygen Transmutation Myth

On June 8, the University of Manchester held a one-day meeting titled “Centenary of Transmutation.” The meeting was to “celebrate the centenary of the first experiments to successfully transmute one element into another,” allegedly performed by Ernest Rutherford, at Manchester, and published 100 years ago in June 1919. In fact, there had been no such discovery. Instead, the historic discovery was made by Patrick Blackett; it took place at the University of Cambridge, and he published his results 94 years ago, in February 1925.

The key expert that spoke at the meeting was John Alexander Campbell, a well-known Rutherford expert. I had exchanged many e-mails with Campbell in 2014 when I was writing my book Lost History. Despite Campbell’s widespread claims that Rutherford had transmuted nitrogen to oxygen, Campbell did not know of any scientific paper in which Rutherford had published such findings. As I quickly learned, Rutherford never published such results.

Continue reading »

July 2, 2019 — by Steven B. Krivit —

In a June 27, 2019, press release, Commonwealth Fusion Systems, a private spin-off from MIT, said it had raised another $50 million from investors, bringing its total fusion reactor funding to $115 million.

MIT began operating its first experimental nuclear fusion reactor in 1972, funded by and under the auspices of the Department of Energy. The federal program ran until 2016 when the DOE and Congress, after four years of indecision, pulled the plug.

During that half-century, MIT had developed a reputation for being a leading plasma fusion research center and had trained many of the world’s plasma physicists. In the absence of public funding from U.S. taxpayers, MIT decided not to continue operating the reactor. Instead, it developed plans for a new reactor that would be funded by private investment.

A year ago, on March 9, 2018, MIT issued a press release announcing its plans for its next experimental fusion reactor:

SPARC is designed to produce about 100 MW of heat. While it will not turn that heat into electricity, it will produce, in pulses of about 10 seconds, as much power as is used by a small city. That output would be more than twice the power used to heat the plasma, achieving the ultimate technical milestone: positive net energy from fusion.

In the June 27, 2019, press release, Commonwealth said that SPARC is designed to generate 100 MW of fusion power. Commonwealth said that, in six years from now, in collaboration with MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center, SPARC will “demonstrate net energy gain from fusion for the first time in history.”

Top MIT executives have been involved in the well-coordinated publicity campaign. On the same day as last year’s press release, the Boston Globe published an op-ed article by MIT Vice President for Research Maria Zuber.

SPARC, Zuber said, is designed to “demonstrate, for the first time, control of a fusion plasma that produces more energy than it consumes.” Continue reading »