Billion Degree Suppression

Two fusion physicists have been threatened with firing and forced to recant spectacular results that promise cheap clean, non-radioactive energy. The results demonstrate the achievement of temperatures of over a billion degrees in a compact fusion device called the plasma focus. More info on the breakthrough »

“Our experiments achieve key conditions needed to burn hydrogen-boron fuel,” said Eric J. Lerner of Lawrenceville Plasma Physics, a third member of the research team. “This opens the door to a new energy source that is environmentally clean and may be a 100 times cheaper than oil and gas. Yet instead of hailing our work, a Los Alamos National Laboratory manager has threatened my colleagues with firing if they don’t repudiate our results. This is outrageous”

Mr. Lerner announced the results May 28 at a scientific conference in Banff, Albert, Canada, but the scientific paper describing the results has been posted to an online physics archive for three weeks. 

On May 23rd Dr. Richard Siemon, Fusion Energy Science Program Manager at Los Alamos demanded Dr. Hank Oona, one of the physicist involved in the experiment, dissociate himself from comparisons that showed the new results to be superior in key respects to those of the tokamak and to remove his name from the paper describing the results. The tokamak, a much larger and more expensive device, has been the centerpiece of the US fusion effort for 25 years.

Siemon did not dispute the data or the achievement of high temperatures. He objected to the comparisons with the tokamak, arguing that it was biased against the tokamak. In addition, Siemon pressured Dr. Bruce Freeman, another co-author of the paper, to advocate the removal of all tokamak comparisons from the paper.

“Both of my colleagues in this research have been threatened with losing their jobs if they don’t distance themselves from the comparisons with the tokamak,” says Lerner who is lead author on the paper. “Both of them had carefully reviewed and approved the paper originally and had endorsed its conclusions. For them to be forced to recant under threat of firing is outrageous. It undermines the very basis of scientific discourse if researchers are not allowed by their institutions to speak honestly to each other. Los Alamos has no more right to tell scientists what to think or say than the Catholic Church had to tell Galileo. I cannot stand by and allow my colleagues, who did tremendous work on this experiment, to be coerced. I strongly protest Dr. Siemon’s behavior.”

The new results are highly important since they show that the extremely high temperatures needed for hydrogen boron fuel can be reached. Plasma focus reactors using hydrogen born fuel would be an almost ideal source of energy. No radioactive byproducts are produced and the fusion energy is released in the form of a beam of charged particles, which can be converted directly to electricity, without the use of expensive steam turbines. Plasma focus devices cost less than $500,000 to build. Once fully developed, focus-based fusion reactors would also be small, making possible decentralized sources of power. Since the reactors would be so economical, the successful development of plasma focus hydrogen boron reactors would eventually make oil and gas nearly worthless as a source of energy (although they would still be extremely valuable for other uses).

In contrast, tokamak devices cannot lead to drastically cheaper energy. Tokamaks use deuterium tritium fuel, which creates high-energy neutrons. These neutrons would then be used for conventional steam turbine generators. Most of the cost of electricity comes from the steam cycle, not the energy source, so a drastic reduction in energy costs is not possible with the tokamak.

“Dr. Siemon’s actions are clearly an attempt to suppress scientific results that are important for the development of new alternative energy sources,” said Mr. Lerner “The plasma focus poses a threat to existing energy sources like oil and gas.”

Since funding for plasma focus research has been highly inadequate, Mr. Lerner and some colleagues have recently set up the Focus Fusion Society, which raises money from the general public for plasma focus research. “I think that the energy question is too important to leave in the hands of government funding agencies,” says Lerner. “The public is vitally interested in the need for new clean and cheap energy. So we hope we can raise some of the money needed for this research through the new Society.”