Huemul Project

The Huemul Project was an advanced project proposed by the Austrian, of German origin, scientist Ronald Richter to the government of Argentina during the first presidency of Juan Domingo Perón, in 1948. Richter convinced Perón that he could produce nuclear fusion energy before any other country. The present incarnation of esentially the same idea is the highly publicized ITER multinational project. Wound into a closed ring, Richter's device becomes a tokamak-like configuration.

Already during WWII following Guderley’s famous convergent shock wave solution, German scientists under Diebner and Gerlach carried out large experiments to explore the possibility to induce thermonuclear reactions in deuterium with high explosive-driven convergent shock waves. At the same time Richter proposed in a memorandum to German Government officials to induce nuclear fusion reactions through shock waves by high-velocity particles shot in a highly compressed ordinary uranium containing deuterium plasma. References regarding these claims can be found in a very recently published book by R. Karlsch entitled “Hitler’s Bombe” DVA, Germany, 2005. In Argentina Richter experimented with the acoustic heating of high temperature arcs.

Late in 1949 construction of the laboratories in Isla Huemul (in the Nahuel Huapi Lake), was initiated. In March 1951 Richter informed Perón that the experiments had been successful and the government announced on March 24 1951:

"On February 16, 1951, in the . . . Isla Huemul . . . thermonuclear reactions under controlled conditions were performed on a technical scale."

Richter's claim to have achieved fusion was wrong, but so was the later, also widely publicized British claim that fusion had been achieved with the Zeta device. Some authors claim that the subsecuent worldwide career in controlled fusion research was triggered by this press announcement.

Some time later, a group of Argentine scientists were appointed to study the capabilities of the project. This group, led by physicist José Antonio Balseiro, concluded that Richter's claims were impossible. A second independent Comission endorsed the conclusions of the first one and the project was closed. Richter had grossly underestimated the technical difficulties of achieving controlled fusion and has erronously interpreted the results of his experiments. As a result José Antonio Balseiro took the direction of the recently created Instituto de Física de Bariloche, and a new Nuclear Plan was started.

The amounts of monetary resources spent are precisally known thanks to a report writen by Dr. Teófilo Isnardi, et. al. published in 1958. After the fall of Peron's Government in September 1955, oppositors to Perón painted a value for the budget of the project in a wall of Richter's Laboratory Nr 4 (a photograph can be seen in Mariscotti's book, see references) claiming that the total expenses were 62 Million Pesos, which at that time (1955) represented approximately 7 Million USD, or about 140 times the amount allocated by the US government soon after Argentinian anouncement (Project codenamed Matterhorn, under Lyman Spitzer, Jr). A recent estimate has been published by Manuel Cardona, Marvin L. Cohen, and Steven G. Louie, in their biography of Falicov (see references). They state that the total cost of the project has been estimated at $300 million USD in today’s value (2003). This amount, however, is small in comparison to the expenditures for the so far unsuccessful worldwide later efforts, but significant enough to credit Argentine Nation as the first one on this planet to support officially a nuclear fusion program for pacific uses.

Today, the Huemul island with the ruins of the historic facilities, 41º06'23"S, 71º23'42"W, can be visited by tourists. It is reached by boat from Bariloche's port.

Most of those scientists who try to belittle his work (as was recorded in the erliest versions of this article), have never done anything of importance by themselves. Nobody in Argentina, specially those engaged with Balseiro's academic heritage, including but not limited to Javier Luzuriaga (see External Links) and coworkers at the Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica (with a budget of about $100 million USD/year supported by argentinian taxpayers), understood and could appreciate Richter's research.

The irony is that the Academic Institution that was established on Richter's project ashes, through the Nuclear Engineers that they are forming today, nor even can finish the conventional fission plant Atucha II ($3.8 billion USD) as originally planned ($1.5 billion USD), after that the corresponding division of the German firm Siemens KWU was recently disbanded.

The Huemul Project has inspired an opera.

Richter, The Opera: A Musical Documentary

References

Guderley, G., 1942, Luftfahrforschung 19, 302.

Mariscotti, M., 2004, El secreto Atómico de Huemul, Ed. Estudio Sigma, Buenos Aires.
Mariscotti, Mario. El Secreto Atomico de Huemul Sudamericana/Planeta, Buenos Aires, Argentina ISBN: 9503701090