Huemul Project

The Huemul Project was a secret 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 (at that time Argentina were among the wealthiest countries of the World). The present incarnation of essentially 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 the 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."

Argentinean claim to have achieved fusion was wrong, but so was the later, widely publicized British claim that fusion had been achieved with the Zeta device. The subsequent 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, and never proposed a constructive way to approach a solution to this, still unsolved, problem in physics. A second independent Commission 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 erroneously interpreted the results of his experiments. José Antonio Balseiro took the direction of the recently created Instituto de Física de Bariloche, now Instituto Balseiro, where he taught electromagnetism, and a new Nuclear (fission based) Plan was started that relied in no new fundamental research.

The amount of resources spent are precisely known thanks to a report written by Dr. Teófilo Isnardi, et. al., published in 1958. After the fall of Peron's Government in September 1955, opponents 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 (the amount stated in Isnardi's report), which at that time (1955) represented approximately 7 Million USD, or about 140 times the amount allocated by the US government soon after Argentinean announcement (Project Matterhorn, under Spitzer). A recent estimate has been published by M. Cardona, et. al., in their biography of Falicov (see references). They state that the total cost of the project was $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.

Most of those scientists who try to belittle Richter's work (as was recorded in earlier versions of this article), have never done anything of importance by themselves. Nobody in Argentina at the time of the announcement, and now, most of 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 argentinean taxpayers), understood and could appreciate Richter's pioneering research.

The irony is that the Academic Institution that was established on Richter's project ashes, through the Nuclear Engineers that they are training since 1976 (Instituto Balseiro is the sole Argentinean Institution that grants this degree), and the physicists they are training since its creation, were unable to finish the 692 MWe conventional nuclear power 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 disbanded.

Today, the Huemul island (satellite view) 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.

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