Yes, yes... Nature Volume 233, 17 Sep 1971, Page 219... you'll note that Mott-Smith (and Langmuir, whom he was talking about in that letter to Nature) was referring to plasma as in "electrical discharge", not plasma as in "the universe-permeating substrate of space-time". So yet again, you're misinterpreting things.
Maybe it is you who is misinterpreting things here....
My thoughts on this is this. Our source for plasma is our Local Star. When you present a very high potential to the plasma around our planet it condenses around that point of high potential and raises the conduction of that space. This in turn allows more conduction and more plasma is condensed eventually emitting all kinds of spurious emissions from that space, including light. This is the discharge. When you present two points it forma a line between them and plasma condenses and allows the discharge to happen. Since matter displaces the plasma medium close to our planet it can be considered rarefied but not absent. Plasma must be uniform. When it is not uniform across space effects happen like gravity.
If we could use plasma detectors in near Earth orbit then down through the atmosphere into the Earth we could see this rarefied effect. Within the Earth it is so rarefied that it actually causes a negative potential, going near earth would show a balanced state and near Earth orbit whould show a plethora of plasma due to the Ionosphere.
The fair weather example shows the extent of the plasma penetration to the lower altitudes.
"The voltages involved in the Earth's circuit are significant. At sea level, the typical potential gradient in fair weather is 120 V/m. Nonetheless, since the conductivity of air is limited, the associated currents are also limited. A typical value is 1800 A over the entire planet. When it is not rainy or stormy, the amount of electricity within the atmosphere is typically between 1000 and 1800 amps. In fair weather conditions, there are about 3.5 micro-amps per square kilometer (9 micro-amps per square mile).[5] This can produce a 200+ volt difference between the head and feet of a regular person."
This fact sets up a model of the plasma penetration into our atmosphere based on the voltage potential of the layers of our atmosphere. More potential means more natural conduction which means more plasma is present. Plasma seeks the ground because the ground has less of the plasma present due to displacement by that matter. This causes a vacuum to form inside of the earth to the plasma surrounding it in the atmosphere. Again the plasma is from our Sun in the form of solar wind. In the ionosphere it is highly condensed and forms a good barrier to the solar wind which contains a ton of plasma between the Hydrogen the Sun is kicking out.
When the solar wind has a sudden discharge from the Sun (CME) it can penetrate the natural thickness of plasma around our Earth. This is where all of the weather events we see come from. That plasma acts like a super dense fluid and heads straight for the ground. This can cause tornadoes Hurricanes and all kinds of bad weather events, including Earth Quakes.
Plasma is not created, it is a flow already established in our Universe down to the Galactic plane and then to our Solar systems plane and finally at our planets ionosphere and finally into our Earth. We have formed a great many logical fallacies about how plasma forms. In a simple understanding the electron is nothing but a bump in the Atmosphere around the atom and the layers that are there in that atmosphere.
Because the plasma is already there and flowing it is the main reason for induction. It is the medium that induction works with. All radiant and inductive events use this medium.
There have been a great many fallacies made to explain the complex math we call theory. Ions, electrons and the likes are those logical fallacies!
As I said before we have to shed the logical fallacies and start from a new understanding that plasma essentially is the conductor of space and that it has a density across space.
Matter in my mind is nothing but a transformer of the plasma flows that are all around us. It gets all of it's energy via these flows as it goes into our Earth and flows out via the magnetic field of this planet. That field is present because of the Flow of plasma from the Sun. When it hits our planet it charges the planet and it converts that charge into a magnetic field that loops back to the Sun's magnetic field. Nasa has shown these magnetic connections already.
The solar winds hydrogen is charged high as well with potential and when it gets to our Ionosphere it discharges and condenses, eventually crossing the barrier of the ionosphere. The plasma is leeched out of the hydrogen pairs as it discharges and flows to the ground. The hydrogen as it condenses looses more and more voltage potential allowing it to fall to the ground state. When it gets to a certain level there is a good chance it will find a free oxygen and form what we like to call it as "Star water". Yes we are gaining water ever second of every day. This is why there are cities buried beneath millions of tons of water in our seas. There is no way to stop this but we could use it and take it off world to manage it better. I doubt we would be able to balance the flow of virgin water from our star but we could slow it to a crawl.