The Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (SZ) Effect is widely cited as proof that the CMB is a distant primordial relic. This paper demonstrates that the SZ effect is fully consistent with - and in several respects more naturally explained by - the BFUT living-universe framework, in which it is a local thermal interaction between the hot intracluster plasma and the ambient Spaticle field. The paper identifies a major internal contradiction in Lambda-CDM: to reconcile SZ cluster counts with CMB cosmology, the model requires galaxy clusters to be 40-85% more massive than measured, while its own simulations justify at most 20-30% mass bias. Proof-of-concept simulations reproduce the thermal SZ distortion class without requiring photons from a primordial surface of last scattering.
V. K. Sharma (Wed,) studied this question.