Nexus January 2013 interview nuclear fusion

Untitled Document

Spanish version: htm pdf

Empty Cathedrals

Posted on January 5, 2013

Supplement of January 20, 2013

Count the number of days that will pass before a similar echo appears in the press, anywhere.

****Gizmodo

****Link

**

January 14, 2013

.

First echo in a web press

:

January 15, 2013

: This text is reprinted in "20 Minutes".

That's all for now ....

The Nexus magazine publishes, in its January-February 2013 issue, a six-page interview in which I discussed the failure of the laser fusion project in the United States, a subject completely ignored in France for six months. The NIF project, the result of thirty years of effort and research, is a bank of 192 lasers, which has cost the American taxpayer 5 billion dollars. This failure effectively condemns the French Megajoule project, which is still in the draft stage and will cost 6.6 billion euros.

[/legacy/NUCLEAIRE/ITER/ITER_fusion_non_controlee/Demande_droit_reponse.htm#29_3_12]

You should not expect anyone, in particular an elected official, to raise this question in the form of a question to the National Assembly: "Given the failure of its American equivalent, the NIF project, should we complete the Megajoule project in the context of the current crisis?" The nuclear lobby is too powerful, and such a move could cost this elected official his sacred career.

I was recently approached by a political figure who wanted me to be one of the "godfathers" of his young movement, which promoted ideas to which I partially agreed, even though I found this "program" very incomplete. When the subject of nuclear energy was raised, I received the following response:

• It is a subject that I do not wish to address for the moment, as it divides the French people.

To address this crucial, urgent, and vital question for simple public health reasons, it may be necessary to have a good dose of "political courage." But, this kind of courage, I have not really encountered it, throughout the contacts I have had with people from all sides. So much so that I have acquired a nauseating view of the political class. These people irresistibly remind me of lawyers who confront each other in court, defending characters and causes they completely disregard, then discussing among professionals over a good meal, or skiing together in Megève, or dining at Lipp.

When it is said that these people are "actors of political life," the word is well chosen. They are only roles, texts that are read, written by others, ideas, statements that money powers put in your mouth. Citizens and internet users are increasingly realizing that political life, like journalistic life, is only a deception, a puppet theater. Some are driven by ambition. The message is crystal clear:

• Make a gesture, say a wrong word, and, with a simple phone call from us, your political party will stop supporting you. You will no longer find a cent to support your future campaign, and the media that are under our control will bring you down in two quick strokes, with some well-aimed articles.

At a higher level, that of heads of state, the warning will be more brutal, more crude:

• Think about your skin. An airplane, car accident, an "unbalanced" person's attack, recognized as guilty, then eliminated, "suicided" in his cell, the triggering of a disease that will take you, all things we can easily manipulate, can be programmed at any time. Also think about your loved ones, your children. Everything is possible, you know.

And this at any level, even that of the head of state of the most powerful nation in the world. You only have to remember the elimination of John F. Kennedy, a bad "lifter," who "thought he was the President of the United States of America."

Back to the question of laser fusion, the failure of the NIF (National Ignition Facility) in the United States. The failure is patent, proven, documented, widely commented on (in a 2012 issue of the New York Times, among others). A report by the American Department of Energy, the DOE (Department Of Energy), the funder, states this without the slightest ambiguity, and causes a firestorm during the summer of 2012.

****To download this report, dated July 19, 2012.

This project was doomed from the start.

It is not up to the NEXUS magazine, which is already making a meritorious effort by being THE ONLY MEDIA to report this information, to go into the technical and scientific details. This article does not meet the expectations of its readership, and I salute the courage of David Dennery, its editor-in-chief, for daring to take the risk of "losing readers with overly complex subjects." With this article, he saves the honor of the profession of journalist, I do not hesitate to say, as his colleagues bow to the pressures of the money powers.

A well-written article, sent four months ago by a colleague engineer to the editor-in-chief of the magazine Science and Avenir, Dominique Leglu, who is so "loud" in her blog, was prudently left unanswered.

I will try to summarize.

In the 1970s, the physicist John Nuckolls (whom I met in Livermore in 1976) published a foundational paper suggesting that fusion could be achieved in a target of a few millimeters in diameter, subjected to the impact of powerful neodymium-doped glass lasers. These lasers provide (and had provided since 1976) an instantaneous power that defies imagination: one terawatt per unit, a million megawatts.

Batteries of xenon fluorescent lamps pump energy into large blocks of pink glass. You have all seen this material at least once, because it is by adding this "rare earth," neodymium, that glasses for glasses get a pinkish tint. Thus, 10,000 joules can be stored in these cylindrical blocks. This energy is not considerable. A calorie represents 4.18 joules. So 10,000 joules represent 2400 calories. Enough to boil, starting from ordinary temperature, thirty cubic centimeters of water: the bottom of a cup of herbal tea!

But this neodymium glass has the property of being able to return its energy in 10 nanoseconds, 10-8 seconds, a hundred-thousandth of a thousandth of a second. Hence this power of a ... million megawatts, per "laser line."

The NIF has 192 such lasers. Banking on a shorter discharge time, it delivers (it has been operational since early 2010) five hundred terawatts of energy, in the form of ultraviolet.

500 terawatts is more than a thousand times the instantaneous power delivered by all the electrical machines operating in the United States.

These ultraviolet beams then enter through the openings of a small cylindrical chamber, equipped with two holes, which specialists have decided to name Hohlraum, opting for the German name (cavity).

The "mini-four" (hohlraum) containing the spherical target in the NIF-Megajoule setups

These beams strike the inner wall of this four, according to a triple ring of spots.

The laser beams strike the inner wall, gold, according to three rings of spots. In the center, in white, the target itself, containing deuterium-tritium

These points of the wall re-emit radiation in the X-ray range, and it is this radiation that will cause the sublimation of the thin shell constituting the ablator. This material, passing into plasma, will expand both outward and inward. It is this retrocompression that, acting on a layer of solid deuterium tritium, which has been deposited on the inner face of this shell (the "frost," formed when the target is cooled to an extremely low temperature before the test), is supposed to propel this material toward the geometric center of the object, at a minimum speed of 370 km/s, to create a "hot spot," from which the fusion reactions are supposed to start.

The target: a shell containing deuterium-tritium

Under these conditions, this layer of solid DT, the "frost," should give a ball of DT at the center where the conditions for fusion should be achieved (the ignition). What is supposed to ensure the confinement of this ball of solid DT and compressed? Inertia. This is why these "laser fusion" systems are called ICF (inertial confinement fusion: Fusion by inertial confinement).

The project started at the end of the 1990s. Refer to the English page of the NIF, the French page is poor.

****http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Ignition_Facility

In this file (and this sentence would be addressed to the French scientific journalists, if they have any desire to do their job properly) the key passage is titled Centurion Halite. At the time when the people from the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, California, tried to convince the Department of Energy to fund this pharaonic project, criticisms arose. It is not about being intoxicated by this magnificent figure concerning power, which is indeed very "science fiction." It is not the key parameter. This one concerns the amount of energy that must be deposited on the target to achieve ignition.

Nuckolls is the first to provide values. But over time, he raises them by several orders of magnitude. At one point, he admits that he ... made a mistake in his calculations. The DOE finally asked for an experiment to have reliable data.

First of all, it is necessary to understand that this NIF project, like the French Megajoule project, are 100% military projects. By telling the public that such systems could produce energy, we are simply mocking the world. The reason is very simple. If these installations were ever to become electricity generators, it would first be necessary to recover the energy produced by fusion, at the wall. This is carried by a flow of helium nuclei and neutrons (80% of the energy is produced in this form). Since tritium does not exist in nature, this wall would have to ensure a "tritium-producing" function, to replenish the tritium stock consumed. There would be lithium plates around the chamber, which, when hit by neutrons, would give helium and lithium. Since the maximum yield is only one tritium nucleus produced per neutron captured, it would be necessary to interpose a substance that serves as a neutron multiplier, lead or beryllium. At the end of all this, a heat exchanger should extract the energy produced, in the form of calories, which would be used to create steam, which would power turbines, collected by alternators.

It would also be necessary to replace the windows through which the laser beams would enter, which would be quickly damaged by the neutrons.

A part of this energy would have to be used to recharge the capacitors powering the lasers, at the cost of a new energy loss. Finally, the efficiency of the neodymium-doped glass lasers does not exceed 1.5% !!

I will not surprise you by saying that there is no plan, no project of such an installation.

This box of gold (a simple "heavy material") re-emitting X-rays is there only to simulate the second stage of a hydrogen bomb, where the X-ray flux is then produced by a fission device. These experiments would allow military engineers to find the best possible components for the ablator, thus increasing the efficiency of the device.

Indeed, in a thermonuclear bomb, only a part of the fusion mixture (solid lithium deuteride) fuses. It is also an inertial confinement system. When the target (this time placed along the axis of the bomb) is hit and begins to fuse, this material immediately expands. The temperature drops, the distance between the nuclei increases. Then the fusion reactions stop.

What emerges from a thermonuclear bomb is not (apart from the reaction products of the fission bomb serving as a trigger), only helium, produced by the fusion reactions, but a mixture of helium and "unburned" material. Only 20% of the explosive is converted into energy. Thanks to these laser fusion test beds, the military hoped to have a more flexible and less expensive test installation than underground nuclear tests, which were otherwise banned by a moratorium at the end of the 1980s, unless I'm mistaken.

You are now informed about the background of these projects.

Disturbed by the successive important adjustments made by Nuckolls, the funder, the DOE, the American Department of Energy, therefore asked that similar targets to those supposed to be used for laser fusion on the NIF be irradiated, by conducting underground nuclear experiments at the Nevada site. These ultra-secret experiments were given the code name "Centurion Halite." They took place from 1978 to 1988. The figures obtained greatly upset the proponents of the NIF project:

In these experiments, ignition is not achieved until the target is hit with an energy of more than 10-20 megajoules

The energy needed to boil 30 liters of water.

Pay attention to the name given to the French project: Megajoule. It means that the goal is to produce a laser energy of the order of a million joules. The same for the NIF.

Do the calculation. The NIF has managed to produce 1.87 megajoules of laser energy. Divide by the number of lasers: 192. You get the amount of energy stored in each laser: 10,000 joules.

This is the amount of energy entering the mini four. Part is used to heat the gold of this four. There are losses of all kinds. In the end, only one tenth of this energy reaches the spherical target, that is 0.18 megajoules. However, the results of the Centurion Halite tests required 10 megajoules.

There is a factor of 55 missing!

Instead of 192 lasers, there would need to be ... a thousand. Budgetarily unthinkable (the French have already reduced the number of "laser lines" to 176, which brings this factor to 60).

The Centurion Halite project is, and remains, a highly classified project. There is no official report available that makes these figures known. But we have two sources. One is French and is based on an indiscretion by an American weapon designer during a Franco-American meeting in the United States. But that is not the only one. The American military engineers involved in these tests know that this huge gap between the required value and what this pharaonic laser bank can produce condemns the project, leading to a fantastic waste. They use retired experts, not bound by the secrecy, to make indirect information leaks. Hence an article that appeared in 1988 in the New York Times.

****[The article from the New York Times, by William Broad, March 21, 1988](/legacy/find/hep-th/1/au_+Steer_D/0/1/0/all/0//NUCLEAIRE/ITER/ITER_fusion_non_controlee/New York Times 1988.pdf)

Its French translation by François Brault

Where did I find this article? Simply in the reference (39) of the English page on the NIF project!

How did the people from Livermore manage to get funding for this project? By modifying the target design. The military had used a thick ablator, compressing a homogeneous DT charge, in liquid form. The Livermore researchers, led by the theorist John Lindl, imagined compressing a layer of solid DT, deposited on the inner face of the ablator, and thinning it to reduce its inertia. Everything was then based on results obtained by a LASNEX code, running on the most powerful computers in the world.

Researchers aware of this NIF project, more than skeptical, want to know how this program is designed, want to evaluate it.

Impossible. They are denied access: the calculation program itself is classified as secret defense! The project is beautifully locked.

So everything worked like this, through an extraordinary lobbying, for three decades. Livermore even managed to place a man rolling for the lab, Steve Koonin, ... paid by him, at the heart of the committee, within the DOE, the American Department of Energy, responsible for monitoring the project. It is even him who presides, writes and signs the progress reports, until 2010! And if you read the DOE report from July 2012, you will see that the first thing the experts ask is that this guy be fired! You will find the name of John Nuckolls, the originator of this whole saga of laser fusion, through the first article he published in the magazine Nature, among the signatories of this report.

All those who are really aware of these laser fusion issues know perfectly well what to expect. Ignition will never be achieved in the NIF. Because nothing has worked as the simulations predicted, which, however, allowed John Lindl, after having obtained the Teller prize, to receive the Maxwell prize in 2007. At that time, he gave a lecture, in the form of a pdf that is worth its weight in wood chips.

****The Maxwell Prize speech by Lindl in 2007

Look at the last page, with his conclusions:

Translation of this last sentence:

The first experiments leading to ignition will only touch the potential of the NIF installation

The Congress has granted the NIF three years of grace in December. The object being brand new, it was difficult to close it overnight. But the operators say:

• It is still too early to say whether the NIF will achieve ignition or not.

One thing is certain: France will complete ITER and Megajoule. Already, our military (because in France Megajoule is funded by the army) say to anyone who wants to listen:

• We have never systematically sought fusion. It is the journalists who have taken it up. But Megajoule will allow us to study the behavior of materials subjected to time-modulated X-ray fluxes.

Even viewed from this angle, it is completely wrong. It is possible to modulate the power emitted by the lasers, by acting upstream, on the amplification chain. These huge lasers are indeed controlled by a "table" laser, which we can perfectly control. Thus, it is true that the laser power that enters the experimental field is well controlled, in time and space. But in the "four" it's ... anything. No one is able to describe what happens there, to model the phenomena. No one has predicted the amount of gold that would be turned into plasma. No one has quantified the opacity that would result (by "stimulated Raman scattering"). The way this X-ray radiation is absorbed by the ablator is also not known. All we know is that "the piston mixes with the fuel," by "Raleigh Taylor instability."

The interface between the ablator and the deuterium tritium mixture is as convoluted as the villi of your intestine. How do we know? By adding to the ablator atoms that play the role of tracers, and measuring their speed by Doppler effect, the experimenters have observed a very high turbulence, a sure sign of a very strong mixing.

What would be the solution?

• Increase the thickness of the ablator? But then we would increase its inertia, and we would lose any chance of achieving the required implosion speed: 370 km/s - Increase the power of the lasers? Impossible. If we increase the amount of stored energy, these expensive objects explode like grenades. From these huge blocks, only fragments the size of a piece of sugar remain. I saw this with my own eyes in Livermore in 1976, where one of the two lasers of the Janus experiment exploded two days before.

• Gain a factor of ten on the energy by direct irradiation, that is, focusing on the target, not X-radiation (emitted by the hohlraum, by direct irradiation) but the UV radiation emanating from the lasers. No. Three decades of experimentation have shown that the shorter the wavelength, the better the laser-wall interaction, that is, the better the absorption of energy by the ablator. The neodymium-doped glass lasers do not produce ultraviolet, but infrared. The first experiments based on this wavelength (Janus: two lasers, Shiva: twenty-four) gave catastrophic results. There was preheating of the DT mixture by "suprathermal electrons." It was necessary to find a system to reduce the wavelength by two, then by three, at the cost of an energy loss. This is how the "driver" works today, its 192 lasers emitting, at the end of the line, ultraviolet. By returning to direct irradiation, all these problems of suprathermal electrons, which we had wanted to get rid of by choosing the indirect irradiation formula, would immediately reappear.

• Increase the wavelength of the laser radiation, for example by dividing it by four? No. Because then the optics would not support it. At such wavelengths and with such power, they ... explode!

After the failure of the NIC (National Ignition Campaign: the test campaign aiming at ignition, the start of a self-sustaining fusion, initiated by a laser shot, between 2010 and 2012), the managers told the press:

• We are not the only ones who have embarked on this path. There are the French (...), but also the Russians, the Chinese. Many countries have projects to build similar laser benches.

A clarification: There is a difference between setting up a line with a single laser of one terawatt, doped with neodymium glass, and launching a pharaonic project. Russians and Chinese said:

• Let's wait to see what comes out of the American NIF bench. If by the greatest of chance, it works, then we will follow suit.

Anyway, the Russians have conducted underground nuclear tests comparable to those of the Centurion Halite project. This threshold value of 10-15 megajoules on the target, they know it. And it is no coincidence that this is the value chosen for the Russian Baikal Z-machine project, regarding the final energy focused on the target. The difference in approach is that, if necessary, this power can be multiplied by ten, or more. With neodymium-doped glass lasers, it is ... impossible.

I believe that if we could transform stupidity into energy, we would have no more supply problems.

The first act of Hollande was to sign the authorization to start the construction of the Astrid reactor, a fast neutron reactor, successor of Superphénix (time planned for the dismantling, currently ongoing, of the latter: 30 years!).

Bataille and Vido, two nuclear deputies, continue to push the mega project of the reorientation of French nuclear energy: the exploitation of our stock of 300,000 tons of uranium 238, residue of more than half a century of extraction of 235 from the ore. If we had 3,000 tons of plutonium 239, it would then be possible to deploy "fourth generation reactors," otherwise known as fast neutron reactors, cooled by sodium "rebranded" throughout France. We would then have 5,000 years of energy autonomy. The La Hague plant is not there to package waste, but to recover the plutonium 239 created in the operating reactors. According to Bataille and Vido: a treasure!

MOX? A mixture of U235 and Pu 239. MOX rods already partially constitute the 25% changes of our reactors. As for the EPR, marking the way, it is designed to operate on pure MOX!

Regarding the installation of fast neutron reactors, there is only one problem: it is pure suicide. Greed or recklessness. The two often go together.

My personal position: nuclear energy should be stopped everywhere in the world, immediately. The development, the massive investment in alternative energy sources is a question of survival of the human species. Yes, it would cost money, a lot. It is called "Great Works." It would create masses of jobs, for things with a future, and not nonsense like ITER and Megajoule.

I inform you that sometimes, many nations embark on a policy that constitutes a fantastic revival of all their economies, all their industries, in all sectors, on a global scale. The industry then runs at full speed. Social dissent disappears completely. Credits are unlimited, the question of return on investment is postponed to the future, through a general consensus. The brightest minds feed the world with innovation, in all technologies, at a frantic pace. Inventors no longer let go of their drawing boards. The demand for such products becomes unlimited, and the world market. Many people are even ready to dedicate their lives, and even to sacrifice them, to ensure the supremacy of products from their own camp, proving their superiority on the field.

These political and economic commitments are called wars.

They are the source of fantastic profits and create a juicy market for the reconstruction of the defeated's industrial apparatus, an operation that will fill the order books of the victors.

If we were to allocate a hundredth of the sums spent in a world war, all the energy problems of the planet would be quickly resolved.

If it is true that we must immediately and urgently stop the development of civilian and military nuclear energy, it would be more than opportune to simultaneously undertake research on aneutronic fusion, via tools like the Z-machines, simple research tools, both non-dangerous and infinitely less expensive (but go and explain to anti-nuclear and environmentalists that nuclear energy could produce non-polluting, safe for human health and the environment, filières!).

To people who would say:

• So, you are always against nuclear energy? You want to go back to the candle?

I would answer:

• I am against your nuclear energy, outdated, primitive. You turn your back on concrete, real scientific advances, extremely important progress, saying, as the nuclear Tartuffes you are: "Hide this science, I cannot see it." It is not about cold fusion or "free energy." I have not yet seen any tangible generators with over-unity efficiency. As for cold fusion, if I believe it is theoretically possible, it remains the true phantom of physics, while more tangible solutions are emerging.

I think of the Z-machines, existing or under construction. I think of the billions of degrees obtained as early as 2006, concrete, measured, reported by my old friend Malcolm Haines in 2006, in an article published in Physical Review Letters (seven years ago!!!). I think of the recent prospects offered by setups like MagLIF. As early as 2006, I had undertaken a vain crusade to inform the Ministry of Research and Industry, then held by Valérie Pécresse (but for this woman, Maxwell must probably be "the inventor of coffee")

Vox clamat in deserto. I give up, I abandon. I cannot continue to play the Don Quixote at 75, especially since the disease has taken up residence in my own home. Chronic, incurable "whose evolution can only be delayed." It's common. One day, it will be my turn. My old friends are disappearing like flies. Others send me messages from the ends of the world, which are farewell messages. Bone cancer, cancers of this, that. Chemotherapy, palliative treatments of all kinds.

I close two years of my life spent exploring the nuclear chessboard. As a plasma physicist, I have acquired knowledge and a general vision of the problems that few people probably possess. And I look at "the path taken."

Politicians are useless, even environmentalists. The institutionalized anti-nuclear activists are the same. The association Sortir du Nucléaire, which groups 900 associations, with its 14 full-time employees, based in Lyon, is scandalously inefficient. It's nothing more than an event organizing agency.

• We form a chain. We hold hands. We take photos and end with a picnic.

Well, of course.

Scientists are beneath contempt. Small-minded, completely focused on their miserable careers, squabbling like monkeys in a zoo. I've met former nuclear experts, military or civilian.

First, I asked him:

• With what you know now, would you have participated as actively as you did in the tests at Mururoa?

• Yes. Where else could you find such experimental means?

Remember the words of Enrico Fermi, who died relatively young, from cancer caused by radiation. When asked about his involvement in the development of the atomic bomb, he replied:

• You bore me. It's still beautiful physics!

Another one was the inventor of the "Castor" wagons, which transport waste to the Hague.

• Would you do it all again?

• Absolutely!

How can you question 35 years of a rich career, on all levels? It's the same with our scientific thinkers. Having reached the peak of honors and fame, what do they fear? We wonder.

A man who firmly believes that the Fukushima disaster caused only two deaths, one of whom died from a stroke. In short, he believes what he wants to believe...

Journalists are bought. Or, as one of them wrote:

• There are two kinds of journalists. Those who write or say what they're told to say and ... those who are unemployed.

Nuclear fanatics are tragically incurable. One wants to tell them, to scream at them, "your children, your grandchildren will curse you, will spit on your graves."

An academic, a specialist in hot plasmas, 77 years old, told me a few weeks ago:

• We need to wait for the first results of ITER before making a judgment (...).

Another great figure of nuclear energy, of the same generation:

• Waste can be managed...

Nonsense!

The height of stupidity, the peak of incompetence, is this sentence by Pascale Hennequin, a research director, "madame hot plasmas at CNRS" (interview given in 2010 to Science et Vie):

• The proof that ITER will work is that we are building it.

What I can't stand anymore is my inefficiency. I reach at best one French person out of fifty thousand. I struggle in vain in deserts of silence. I will end up writing a book, which I will print myself and sell a thousand copies through my website. Moreover, the print run will remain on my hands, like that of L'ambre et le Verre. You will never see me on a TV show, nor in the columns of the Monde des Sciences. It is a miracle that a newspaper, you hear me, ONE, namely NEXUS, publishes this perfectly reliable, documented information, which no newspaper, no television has mentioned in France.

• Laser fusion is a failure in the USA and will be the same in France with Mégajoule (you will remember this prediction)

Every day, I receive messages of thanks "for all your efforts". But I have to stay alive, keep a minimum of balance, take care of those I love, and their health, and mine. If I had to deal with everything that is sent to me daily, I would spend my nights on it.

There is also one thing I can no longer tolerate: this ostracism towards the only high-level scientist who dared to touch the UFO subject and none of his "peers" would dare to face, mano a mano, in the closed field of a seminar. And this for 35 years. There, it's excommunication, definitive, fierce, irreversible. A friend told me, "how do you want to change this situation? Type J.P. Petit on Google, then UFO, or Ummo, and see what falls down."

Dozens of videos, which I do not renounce a single word, a single line written, a single word spoken, but which make me a thinker in circles, therefore an excommunicated person.

Against this, I can do nothing.

I remember an anecdote from six years ago. The editor of the Revue du Palais de la Découverte allowed me to publish an article on the Z-machine, a novelty at the time.

In the days that followed, he was present at a meeting bringing together the editors of various science popularization magazines. One of them said to him in a friendly tone:

• Why did you publish this article? You know well that we have instructions to close our columns to him.

And this guy said to me, "I didn't think it would go that far."

When my book "On a perdu la moitié de l'univers" was published, 15 years ago, a scientific journalist, defying the omertà, interviewed me on the radio, adding, "I know that this will be held against me."

Fifteen years have passed. What holds the top of the pyramid: the lamentable pantomimes on superstrings, dark matter and now dark energy, told by Misho Kaku, a proponent of non-knowledge, and by many others.

I created Savoir sans Frontières. http://www.savoir-sans-frontieres.com. 450 albums translated into 36 languages. Media echo: none. Is it a coincidence? Of course not!

I tried to publish albums (L'ambre et le Verre). A thousand copies remain on our hands. They sell... one a month. Totally discouraging. I know precisely my audience, my readership: a thousand fans, unconditional. One French person out of 50,000. Last year, the publication of a book turned into a mess, due to the fundamental incorrectness of the publisher. My readers will know what I'm referring to. Unluckily, the man was an idiot, both opportunistic and ... multi-incompetent.

I'm stepping back, very seriously. I'm putting the nuclear + fusion file on a shelf. It's 15 centimeters thick and represents 1,500 pages.

Having contacted "experts" in the field, I received only praise. One of them, very well known, one of the main figures of French nuclear energy, even said to me:

• I have immense admiration for you. You are one of the few scientists who go to the bottom of things, instead of staying on the surface. It is important that you continue your fight.

This bouquet of flowers caught me off guard. After regaining my composure, I said to him:

• Then, help me. Have my article published, by sending it to a science popularization magazine, with your support.

The matter was launched, since January 2nd. The article, written, was sent to him. You will soon see the result. Its title: "Mondes hors d'équilibre". Theme: the inefficiency of conducting expensive and heavy research due to the total lack of reliability, except for rare exceptions concerning fluid mechanics, material resistance, and computer simulations, especially everything related to plasmas (ITER, Mégajoule).

This old man, will he take the step, will he persist? He has the weight to impose this writing. We will soon know. If in the following months no article signed by me appears, then you will know that once again the windmills have defeated Don Quixote, who has only one life, only one skin.

I will install the English version of "Mondes hors d'équilibre", translated by a reader, on the anglophone side of my site. When my loyal readers appear on my homepage, they first look at the dates. When was the last update? If I find translators, these will be on the anglophone side, then in other languages, if the opportunity arises (a reader has translated this page into Spanish).

There will be a small French flag. By clicking, you can download the French version of articles now designed for all countries.

In passing, I found the pdf of an article sent to Pour la Science in November 2011, which remained unanswered:

****The Hidden Side of ITER

Am I, as some think, bitter and disillusioned? No, just angry and tired. I want to be distracted a bit, and in this area I have no shortage of choices.

Surgeons discuss their patients, giving their opinions on the easiest to operate on.

The first says: they are electricians. Inside, everything is marked by a color code.

No, says the second, they are librarians. They are sorted alphabetically.

The third says: I prefer mechanics, because they come with spare parts.

You're completely off, says the last one. They are politicians. They have neither heart, nor guts, nor balls. And when you change the mouth with the anus, no one sees the difference.

Surgeons discuss their patients, giving their opinions on the easiest to operate on.

The first says: they are electricians. Inside, everything is marked by a color code.

No, says the second, they are librarians. They are sorted alphabetically.

The third says: I prefer mechanics, because they come with spare parts.

You're completely off, says the last one. They are politicians. They have neither heart, nor guts, nor balls. And when you change the mouth with the anus, no one sees the difference.

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/nuclear_power/2013/01/fusion_energy_from_edward_teller_to_today_why_fusion_won_t_be_a_source_of.2.html

http://www.slate.com/authors.charles_seife.html

His French translation

January 2, 2012.

A strong article by Charles Seife, journalism professor at New York University

Published in Slate, found by François Brault.

, ensured by François Brault,

who has vainly tried to get this translation through the French side of Slate

**

January 12, 2013:

I received a call from the former journalist Robert Arnoux. Former journalist at Le Provençal, now at La Provence. Many years ago, he sold himself to the ITER group, becoming its "communications manager". In such an apparatus, he is automatically an important person. ITER is 99% "communications" and 1% idea and science. This remark will surprise. But don't confuse science and technology. There is technology, by the gods! Everything is subcontracted. The Bertin company, for example, develops a precise pointing system for the 176 lasers of Mégajoule, and has won a big contract to assemble superconducting coils for ITER. How many companies, around the world, are involved in these big projects?

It's very beautiful. Nothing will be missing. Like at the NIF, the lasers of Mégajoule will be precisely aimed. The superconducting coils of ITER will work. But they will be empty cathedrals. The spirit of science is missing. Nothing will work. You know it now. For the NIF, it has become a fact. For ITER, you will have to wait some costly decades, punctuated by countless delays due to a myriad of "unforeseen circumstances".

For nuclear energy in general, it will take a Fukushima-like catastrophe in Europe for people to realize. Because Westerners may be less passive and resigned than the Japanese, where dissent is still considered antisocial behavior. Imagine a Fukushima-like catastrophe in a reactor in the Lyon region, whose emissions would be carried by a powerful mistral. The entire Rhône Valley would be seriously contaminated.

Perhaps it will take such a moment for the people to revolt against the ignorant and greedy fools who govern them.

It is useless to hope, in our country, that competent people consider the possible emergence of an aneutronic fusion. The mere fact of considering it would cast a shadow of doubt on our pharaonic ITER and Megajoule projects (the latter already having some problems).

Meanwhile, people like Arnoux, too smart to not perceive the stench of the nonsense he sells, have sold their souls. For what? Probably money. A good salary. Robert has also probably been on all the study trips of the group. He is consulted on every policy shift:

• Robert, how do you think this will be perceived by the general public? ...

• Well, I would say ...

So here is Arnoux calling me, the day before yesterday. He wanted, urgently, the contact details of Michèle Rivasi (to do what, great gods?).

And he adds:

• I will come to see you, one day ...

If he does, let him bring his wife and daughter. I will enlighten them about the activities, which of the husband, which of the father.

A few months ago, Arnoux gave a press conference at "l'Académie des Marseille", on the occasion of the approval, by the ASN, a service-croupion you can imagine, of the project to install ITER. Green light, finally. That was worth a press conference.

When Arnoux saw me, at the entrance of the room, he exclaimed, with his southern accent:

• Ah, I was afraid you would be there! You won't ruin it, will you? I learned that you recently dined with Putvinski. Serguei, whom I see every day, has provided answers to the questions you had about disruptions.

This dinner was supposed to be confidential. Arnoux gave his speech, somewhat worried, but still. He insisted on clarifying that he no longer uses, and will no longer use, the image "the Sun in a bottle", having probably acquired, after the publication of his book, co-written with Jacquinot (founder of the Institute for Magnetic Fusion Research, located in Cadarache), some knowledge of astrophysics and learned that disruptions are the laboratory counterpart of the monstrous eruptions of our solar star (a fact revealed since 2007 in the report of the Academy of Sciences, written under the direction of academician Guy Laval).

He clearly did not know that Putvinky, Mr. Instabilities at ITER, had just resigned, had given up his job. He has now left, without drums or trumpets, realizing that this problem has ... no solutions. This man, after joining the ITER group in 2009 and buying a nice property in the region, did not return to the USA to work on ... another tokamak. No, he no longer believes, like many other scientists of his caliber, in the viability of this formula.

This has somewhat disconcerted this honest Robert, representative of giant tokamaks.

I just received an email from an American, who is in charge of one of the largest teams, over the Atlantic, working on fusion in tokamaks. He has vast experience in this field, 30 years. He concluded:

• Never will a machine of the tokamak type become an industrial-scale electricity generator, because it will never be possible to oppose to the neutron flux of fusion a wall that can resist for a appreciable time. There will never be "that magical material", which Motojima dreams of.

If one day I finalize this book on fusion, I will give the name of this man. A real expert in the field.

When I had Arnoux on the phone, I told him:

• You can reassure your bosses. I will no longer bother them, and you can safely sell your nonsense. I am out of the game. ITER and Mégajoule will be built, I have no illusions about that. And you are too smart not to know that it won't work. You have been going through all my writings for two years. It's your job, after all.

The effect was immediate. Informed that there would no longer be scientific opposition (mine), Motojima and Geneviève Fioraso did not hold back in stupidity. The Minister of Higher Education and Research launched a phrase that was concocted by a communication specialist (Robert Arnoux, perhaps, since it's his job at the ITER Organization):

• We are going to conquer the sun!

Paraphrasing a famous book by Robert Merle, I could conclude with this phrase, which summarizes the second phase of his career (and of many journalists and politicians):

Lying is my job

Geneviève FiorasoTM

We would be crazy to do without the ITER project!

• Because the global demand for energy continues to grow: it will increase by a third by 2035. We have the opportunity to produce clean and reliable energy...

So yes, we are going to conquer the sun (Ndlr, the fusion reaction occurs naturally in the heart of the sun).

But we keep our feet on the ground!

We needed reassurance; today, we are reassured. We will all be able to fully benefit from this economic lever, in terms of jobs.

But also a lever for the progress of humanity, probably comparable to the conquest of space!" Hence the words of Osamu Motojima, the director general of Iter Organization: "Today, fusion is no longer just a dream. It is becoming a reality", it was time.

This is excerpted from the article published in La Provence, written by journalist Damien Frossart .

A man I had visited, in his office in Manosque, bringing him all the documentation regarding the instability of ITER and generally of tokamaks (the theses of Reux and of Thornton), before the public inquiry commission's opinion was released, in the summer of 2011. I had offered to come back to give all necessary explanations and clarifications.

He promised to mention it. He did not and will not do anything.

He lies by omission in each of his articles.

The phrase of our new minister of higher education and research testifies to a splendid ignorance of the issue. She follows others who preceded her: the former astronaut Claudie Haigneré, or Valérie Pécresse. At this point, one can question the competence and ability to judge the successor of Nicolas Sarkozy (who was subservient to the Americans), François Hollande

**Michèle Rivasi. To her left, Cécile Duflot, demonstrating on January 17, 2013 in front of Cadarache

during the inauguration of the basic nuclear installation ITER.**

I did not find a photograph of "the whole demonstration". In the style "we form a chain and take photos". A strategy you will find at number one on the website of Sortir du Nucléaire.

I meet Michèle Rivasi, a European parliament member, in 2011, at a conference she gave, alongside the CNRS researcher working on particle accelerators, Jean-Marie Brom ("the spearhead of the association Sortir du Nucléaire").

Jean Marie Brom, a particle physicist. Works on particle accelerators and knows nothing at all about fusion.

I was invited to this conference, as a simple spectator, in the room, in a small town near Pertuis, the Tour d'Aygues, at the request of a local association: "Mediane". The two speakers gave rather empty presentations. Brom played the role of Hubert Reeves of the atom, insisting that the average listener make the difference between fission and fusion.

At the end of these presentations, I intervened for a few minutes. Michèle Rivasi then suggested that Brom and I prepare a text that could be co-signed by other scientists opposed to the ITER project. After that, I tried to contact Brom, who turned out to be evasive, always busy. I finally wrote a rather lengthy report, which was barely published on the website of Sortir du Nucléaire (but I dare you to find it, in this mess). I decided to send this text to André Grégoire, President of the Commission responsible for the public inquiry related to the creation of the site ITER, at Cadarache. Not having been able to obtain any exchange with Brom, I ended up composing this text alone. Before sending it, I made him read this text, asking him to co-sign it, which he did. Thus the document was sent to Grégoire, in urgency, before his imminent decision regarding the green light for the installation of ITER.

But, in the days that followed, Brom told me "if I had read this text, I would not have signed it" (...). Upon reading it (if you manage to find this document on the website of Sortir du Nucléaire!), you will wonder why he had this last-minute reaction. In any case, 24 hours after receiving this document, signed by four scientists, Grégoire received a letter from Brom, who distanced himself from our approach. It would have been better if he had not signed at all.

****http://groupes.sortirdunucleaire.org/IMG/pdf/Lettre_Enquete_Publique_juillet_2011.pdf

In 2011 I contacted the association Sortir du Nucléaire (a collective of 900 associations, who "spit in the cradle". 14 full-time employees in Lyon). I sent them a first article, which quickly disappeared in the pile of "events".

The letter addressed to the President of the Public Inquiry Commission, July 2001 (found on this site by a reader) I think the most effective way to fight against the madness of the nuclear fanatics is to explain to the public that their projects are flawed (and/or delusional). The "chains" formed by the activists: the CEA and the government don't care!

To raise public awareness, it would be necessary to have well-written popularization articles. In websites, since the press is sold. A whole training, so that people have a clear view of the nonsense they are being fed.

For this, I had suggested to Sortir du Nucléaire to put on its website a discreet icon, directing to this kind of articles, which I was ready to create:

Response: nothing.

Also, to the brave militants who propose to me to participate in "chains", here or in Paris, I answer: "pressure your number one communication organ, the association Sortir du Nucléaire" and get this done".

But it won't happen. Is it because of the incompetence of the leadership team, problems of ego (J.M.Brom) or even because this structure is infiltrated, which wouldn't surprise me? If I were on the side of the nuclear fanatics, I would push in this direction.

No, this association will continue on its way: the formation of "chains". You hold hands, etc...

Without me....

A few months later, a version inspired by this text was sent by Rivasi to the European Parliament's budget committee, in French and English (she had the document translated). She then told me that, at the request of Bernard Bigot, general administrator of the CEA, Brom had been called to Paris, to the General Directorate of the CNRS, where he was strongly reprimanded.

Over the months, the situation has become tense, with the CEA. I had found the first elements representing very well-argued criticisms (plasma instability) in the thesis of young Cédric Reux, submitted in 2010, information which had been corroborated by the similar thesis of the Englishman Andrew Thorton, early 2011.

Reux then sent a letter to Rivasi, and asked for a meeting. At the same time he sent me a letter saying that I had misused his words by extracting sentences, out of context, for malicious purposes. He clearly implied that he had contacted a lawyer to file a professional damage claim (the letter obviously comes from the legal department of the CEA). I immediately reacted by transforming this 16-page document into a thick document, filled with multiple excerpts from his thesis of Reux, saying constantly "regarding this question, let's give Mr. Reux the word". There were so many citations, long and copious, corroborated by similar excerpts from the thesis of Thornton, that the claim of misusing his writings no longer held.

Bigot also wrote to Michèle Rivasi (in the ... way, she let me read the letter) proposing a "clarification" at the Paris headquarters of the CEA, in the presence of Mr. Reux and experts in fusion. Rivasi replied that she would maintain this confrontation in one of the offices on Boulevard Saint Germain, made available to parliamentarians by the National Assembly, nearby.

I went to Paris. It was agreed, with Rivasi's agreement, that Jean Robin would film the confrontation. I took the TGV and arrived two days early in Paris, taking a hotel room. Not fully recovered from my back relapse, I was too loaded. The paper was heavy. Books, reports, the two theses, of Reux and of Thornton: dozens of kilograms. All this tired me terribly when climbing the terrible stairs of the Gare de Lyon, where there are no escalators. The next day, missing a sidewalk, a sharp pain shot through my spine and I collapsed on the ground screaming, in the middle of the street. Never in my life had I known such violent pain. It is known. It is no longer simply a "backache", painful, but a sudden reaction when the spinal cord gets involved. Passersby surrounded me, helping me to get up, painfully.

• It's nothing, it will pass...

I returned to my hotel where I spent two days lying down, waiting for it to calm down, canceling other appointments, to be able to go to those offices that the National Assembly makes available to elected officials, on Boulevard Saint Germain, near the chamber.

On the morning of the day when the confrontation with Bernard Bigot, General Administrator of the CEA, flanked "by fusion specialists, and ITER" was to take place, I received a phone call from Jean Robin, who was to film the meeting.

Here is another type of person, for whom the words honesty, respect for commitments, are empty. A man who continues (we have proof) to sell the 9 DVDs of an hour and a half he recorded at my place in 2011, and to keep the profit for himself, without paying the 3 euros per DVD, to the Association without Frontiers, as was agreed.

A mere opportunist, with an ambition extending far beyond his talents, who tries to present himself as a polemicist, attacking one or the other, desperately trying to get attention.

Here he is calling me, in the fall of 2011. Of course, he records all his phone conversations. Robert Ménard, a journalist who was briefly his collaborator, will be happy to learn that the fruit of this was for Robin to have a copy of a list of phone numbers, allowing direct contact with a large number of personalities, from all walks of life, a journalist's number one tool.

Robin:

• Mr. Petit, I just had a phone call from Michèle Rivasi's secretary. You won't like it.

And he sends me the recording as an attachment.

This secretary says to me in substance:

• Mr. Bigot has canceled the meeting this evening. Could you please inform Mr. Petit, as we don't have his phone number.

False! Rivasi has it, and is very likely next to her secretary when she calls Robin. She is trying to get out, that's all.

I decide to call her on her mobile. Politicians always use "you", which I don't like. I decide to tell her, as if I was not aware of this "decision to cancel", which she apparently quickly accepted:

• Hello, Michèle. Do you have news from the CEA people for this meeting this evening? Because if they back out, we will come anyway, and give an interview.

Upon reading my message, Rivasi says to herself: "Hmm... if I don't come, this guy won't miss me on his site. And he will make a strong statement in front of Robin, who will spread it in his own form, as a new video."

She came and did her part brilliantly, as if nothing had happened, after having desperately tried to get out.

At the end of this interview I said to her:

• Well, at this stage, we should publish a book. Would you agree to co-sign it?

• Yes, I agree.

• Well, I will write the book and you will find an editor.

• OK.

The months pass. I write 180 pages, in the form of a dialogue between her and me, and I send her my prose, as I go, asking for her opinion. But she becomes evasive. I finally tell her:

• I can't continue like this. We need a work session in Paris to define the main axes of the book.

The appointment is set, early 2012. I take the TGV and a hotel room, always at my own expense. She confirms the appointment by phone three days before, setting the place and time. It's again in those offices on Boulevard Saint Germain, where I go, at the appointed time, 4 p.m.

An hour passes: no one. I finally manage to reach her after several attempts.

• Oh, but today I'm in Brussels! You know what you're going to do. You're going to Gare du Nord. There's a train every hour. You come join me in Brussels, at the Parliament. I'll reimburse your train ticket (...).

Like an idiot, once again too loaded, tired, I go to Gare du Nord. The next train is at 7 p.m. I wisely decide to give up and let her know I'm going back.

Had she "forgotten"? I doubt it. But I'm not sure she wanted to be seen again next to a man, whom, by her own admission, they had from the start told her was "unapproachable," and you know why.

To third parties, she will say in the following months "that I am difficult to deal with."

Internet users will draw their own conclusions.

In 2011 I had contacted the association Sortir du Nucléaire (a collective bringing together 900 associations, which "spit in the cradle". 14 full-time employees in Lyon). I sent them an initial article, which quickly disappeared in the pile of "events."

The letter addressed to the President of the Public Inquiry Commission, July 2001 (found on this site by a reader). I think the most effective way to fight against the madness of the nuclearists is to explain to the public that their projects are flawed (and/or crazy). The "chains" formed by activists: the CEA and the government couldn't care less!

To raise public awareness, there should be well-written popular articles. In websites, since the press is sold. A whole training program, so people have a clear view of the nonsense they are made to swallow.

For this, I had suggested to Sortir du Nucléaire to put on their website a discreet icon, leading to this kind of articles, which I was ready to create:

Response: nothing.

Also, to the brave activists who offer me to participate in "chains," here or in Paris, I answer: "Put pressure on your number one communication body, the Association Sortir du Nucléaire" and get it done."

But it won't happen. Is it because of the incompetence of the leadership team, ego problems (J.M. Brom), or even because this structure is infiltrated, which wouldn't surprise me? If I were on the side of the nuclearists, I would push in this direction.

No, this association will continue on its path: the formation of "chains." We hold hands, etc...

Without me....

As one of my readers wrote to me, lucidly:

• In France, you're finished.

It's true, and for decades. Finished with scientists, intellectuals, politicians and ... academicians. I touch a few thousand honest people, ... honest people. Thousands of ordinary men and women who send me warm encouragement. It's both a lot and little. At best, one French person out of fifty thousand.

To understand this exclusion, it's enough to understand French and refer to the numerous videos where I appear on the Internet, so that I'm immediately classified in the "ufologist" category. The average scientist, suffering from a violent psycho-social-immunological reaction, will not read a single line of my work or writings. Those who go beyond, out of intellectual curiosity, will remain cautiously silent. Politicians will first think about their image, their careers. The last interview I accepted was for the journal "Les Inrockuptibles." In the article, I was described as ... a conspiracy theorist. Bravo!

A solution is to address a non-French-speaking audience. By distributing documents in English, one immediately reaches the majority of scientists and engineers, and many intellectuals and foreign politicians.

I don't speak English well enough to write texts in this language. But in the future, if I compose a new dossier or a synthesis article, I will give it an "international" form, avoiding French-French references. I will then wait for Internet users, voluntarily and quickly, to translate my writings into English. I will make them into PDFs, easy to distribute.

A reader has translated "Mondes hors d'équilibre" into English. I will put it online. As for its French version, intended to appear in a scientific information magazine, will it appear, thanks to the support of this figure of French nuclear? Let's wait. If it does, I think I could open a bottle of champagne. But I fear this approach will end up in nothing, like so many others.

.