Talk:Huemul Project/Work

The Huemul Project was controversial attempt of creating nuclear fusion energy by Ronald Richter in Argentina from 1948 to 1951, during the first presidency of Juan Domingo Perón.

Richter, an Austrian scientist of German origin, convinsed the Argentine government to finance his fusion project. During a prosperous period in Argentine history, Perón decided to grant support to the foreign scientist, and a working laboratory was started in 1949 at the Huemul Island (in the Nahuel Huapi Lake, near the city of Bariloche).

Already during World War II following Guderley's convergent shock wave solution, German scientists under Kurt Diebner and Walther 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. ("Hitler's Bomb", Rainer Karlsch, DVA, Germany 2005). In Argentina Richter experimented with the acoustic heating of high temperature arcs.

In March 1951 Richter informed Perón that the experiments had been successful, and the government made an international announcement on March 24 1951 that "On February 16, 1951, in the [...] Isla Huemul [...] thermonuclear reactions under controlled conditions were performed on a technical scale."

Even though the claim was later proven to be false, it triggered a worldwide race on controlled fusion research.

Some time later, a group of Argentine scientists was 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 Commission endorsed the conclusions of the first one, and the project was closed.

It was said that Richter had grossly underestimated the technical difficulties of achieving controlled fusion and had erroneously interpreted the results of his experiments. Balseiro took the direction of the recently created Instituto de Física de Bariloche, now Instituto Balseiro, where he taught electromagnetism, and a new Nuclear Plan (fission-based) was started that relied in no new fundamental research.

The amount of resources spent are known thanks to a report written by Dr. Teófilo Isnardi et. al., published in 1958. After the fall of Perón's government in September 1955, opponents to Perón painted a value for the budget of the project in a wall of Richter's Laboratory No. 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 represented approximately 7 million USD, or about 140 times the amount allocated by the U.S. government soon after the Argentine announcement (Project Matterhorn, under Lyman 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 equivalent to 300 million USD at current values (of 2003). This amount is small compared to the expenditures made by other nations in later efforts, but it is significant considering it credits Argentina as the first country to give official support to a nuclear fusion program for pacific uses.

Today, the Huemul island with the ruins of the historic facilities (at -41.10639°N, -71.395°W), can be visited by tourists. It is reached by boat from the port of Bariloche.

From Physics Today

 * Juan G. Roederer. Article (2003)
 * More on the Value of Ronald Richter's Work
 * Santos Mayo, Friedwardt Winterberg. Letters (2004)
 * Javier Luzuriaga. Letter (2005)

Proyecto Huemul