In their paper “Elephant in the room: overlooked plasma-destroying reaction with cross section 1012 times that for fusion necessitates redesign of International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor ITER,”* three physicists from California Science and Engineering Corp., Irvine, CA, claim that ITER designers were unaware that the ignored fusion-preventing atomic reaction known as “charge transfer” or “CT,” had a trillion times higher cross section (probability) than that for fusion, hence it will prevent the ignition of ITER, as it did in all 160-odd tokamaks within the past 50 years. CT’s cross section measurement in UK1 of a billion barn became known only after ITER was designed; fusion cross section is a 1/1000 of a barn. There no mention of CT in ITER design2. EXISTENCE OF ‘CRITICAL ENERGY’. Existence of CT gives rise to the hitherto – unknown critical energy below which reactors are inoperable; and above which – free from CT destruction […]