History
Article in Nature in 1980
In 1980 Nature published the first journal article on ball lightning by Dr Dijkhuis. This was recorded by The New York Times of 25 March 1980 in its Science Watch columns. In 1983 the Dutch public limited company Convectron N.V. (the "Predecessor") was founded. It obtained the property rights of two patent applications on fusion energy from bosonic plasmoids.
The Predecessor conducted two public share issues to finance its planned activities. These experienced fierce opposition from persons out of Dutch scientific circles, ridiculing any small-scale, low-budget shortcut route to controlled nuclear fusion. However, these found favour with concerned media, industry, local government and especially private investors thus enabling partial funding of two test programs for prototype demonstration of the Convectron fusion reactor concept.
Past experiments
During 1984-85, the Predecessor started with one, and at a later stage used two submarine propulsion batteries (see second photo from left above) for fireball tests by interruption of short-circuit currents. A high-speed film camera recorded fireball generation which was broadcasted nationally and worldwide in TV documentaries on ball lightning.
During 1986-87, the Predecessor built a Laval nozzle facility (see third photo from left above), for detection and demonstration of deuterium fusion in supersonic flow under high-voltage breakdown conditions. The third of three test sessions at the KEMA High-Power Laboratory in Arnhem, The Netherlands recorded neutron counts as from deuterium fusion.
