In October 1989 there was a fire in the village. Vandellos centralThe most serious nuclear accident in the history of Western Europe occurred in Tarragona. Fortunately, the joint actions of firefighters and technical specialists led to the fact that everything ended in fear, as he was not released. radioactive material Towards the environment. Despite this, the decision was made to dismantle the reactor, which remains closed to this day. At the time, it was only used to produce energy, but several years earlier, this nuclear power plant had a hidden mission: to use the plutonium produced as waste to produce atomic bombs.
Everything was part Islero project, the Franco government’s secret plan to include Spain on the list of countries with atomic bombs in its personal arsenal. The Director of the said mission, Mr. General Guillermo Velardewas responsible for making some of the details of this project public, years after Franco himself had decided to put an end to it.
Atomic bombs were never created. However, it has been shown that, technically speaking, Spanish military scientists They were trained to do this.
The birth of the Islero project
In 1948, dictator Francisco Franco created the Atomic Research Council, which was later renamed the Atomic Research Council in 1951. Nuclear Energy Council (JEN). The country’s best scientists in the field of nuclear physics were involved in it. Spanish Oppenheimers. The initial purpose of this institution was not military. However, after Independence of Moroccooccurred in 1956, people began to think about the possibility of developing an atomic bomb. The outbreak of the Ifni War in 1957 cemented this idea, which was formulated in a secret project named after the bull that killed Manolete: Islero.
The United States and the USSR created the greatest precedent in the production of atomic bombs. But both did it within secret projectsso there wasn’t much information about it.
Secrets of the hydrogen bomb
Spanish scientists wanted to explore hydrogen bomb development. These are those that, instead of using nuclear fission, such as used in nuclear power plants, are based on nuclear fusion. The main difference between one phenomenon and another is that during nuclear fission, the nuclei of heavy atoms split, e.g. uranium or plutonium, and during thermonuclear fusion, the nuclei of light atoms combine to form a larger one. Both processes very energetic, but merging is much more than that. In fact, this is the type of reaction that supports lit stars. The problem is that it is much more difficult to control. That is why Oppenheimer himself did not even want to hear about this option when he led the Manhattan Project.
Two other scientists hired by the United States did: Edward Teller and Stanislaw Ulam. Both developed what was called Teller-Ulam process. It involved preparing a casing with a small fission bomb at one end and fusion material consisting of hydrogen isotopes such as deuterium and tritium at the other. When the fission bomb was detonated, the shock waves compressed the fuel, causing its nuclei to melt and generate energy much greater than that of atomic fission bombs.
The procedure remained secret for many years. The United States did not want other countries to be able to produce the hydrogen bomb. They couldn’t stop the USSR from doing this, but they kept the information secret as long as they could. Despite this, an unexpected accident forced Spain to reveal its secret.
Palomares accident and Spanish atomic bombs
In 1966 Airplane B-52 US armies faced tanker aircraft about Almeria city Palomares. The accident resulted in the release of four hydrogen bombs, which were 68 times more powerful than the one in Hiroshima. Two of them opened in the fall, releasing isotopes of plutonium that reacted with air to form aerosolized plutonium dioxide. This dangerous substance was sprayed 435 hectares of landcausing horror among local residents.
It is logical that the unrest brought nuclear energy experts from the United States and Spain to the area. Among the Spaniards was General Velarde, who discovered something curious when inspect the land. What caught his attention was that some of the stones were completely blackened, as if some kind of plastic had melted on them. He asked American scientists what the reason was, and they explained that the bombs on the planes were surrounded polystyrene sponge so that they don’t collide with each other.
But Velarde did not believe that polystyrene was suitable only for this. He analyzed several samples and, putting the puzzle pieces together in his head, came to the conclusion that the bombs contained a shell with plutonium on one side, isotopes of tritium and deuterium on the other, and polystyrene in the middle. This would allow sufficient temperature to be reached before the polonium explosion caused fusion. He discovered the Teller-Ulam process. Now Spain could produce own atomic bombs.
Human experiments
While Velarde uncovered one of the most closely guarded secrets in the United States, scientists at the Los Alamos Laboratory, where the Manhattan Project was conceived, developed their own plan. Director of Biomedical Research of the said institution, Wright Haskell Langham, was known for his unethical research into the effects of radioactivity on human health. He even injected polonium 18 into terminally ill patients without their consent, just to see how the radiation developed in their bodies.
As soon as he learned about the Palomares accident, he had an idea that was very consistent with his previous investigations. Use local people as Guinea pigs.
He and his team reached an agreement with Franco’s government. They would have removed some of the polonium spilled on Almeria’s soil, but less than originally agreed. More precisely, 3 times less than originally promised, and almost 30 times less than JEN experts recommended. Logically, this was unsafe for the population, but that was the plan. The Spanish government agreed, in exchange for a donation of materials, to establish a large radiological research laboratory.
So, year after year, they began to take samples of both the urine of their neighbors and the products grown in this territory, who lived mainly off what the land provided. After analyzing the samples, they were told that everything was going well, but this was not true. In 1978, the US admitted that it had acted incorrectly. In the 1980s, neighbors fought to restore their medical records, and what they saw had nothing to do with what they had originally been told.
Vandellos comes into play
While Minister Manuel Fraga bathed in the waters of Palomares, pretending that everything was going well, General Velarde continued Island project. He already knew how to make hydrogen atomic bombs. He only had get plutonium.
For this purpose it was decided to build Vandellos Nuclear Power Plantin which this radioactive element was obtained as remainder. The Spanish treasury did not have the necessary money, so they were helped by the French government, the only major European country that did not turn its back on the dictatorship.
France was interested in having a plutonium production plant nearby because they could also use it, so they gave the government the option 455 million francs necessary. Spain’s goal was to produce 36 atomic bombs, of which 8 are hydrogen. However, before he had time to do this, Franco himself put an end to the project. The United States did not agree with Spain producing atomic bombs, especially in cooperation with France. The dictator was afraid that the North American country would reveal his secret, so in the end he chose to keep it secret. support.
Would it be possible to create an atomic bomb?
Vandellos continued to operate normally, receiving energy, until an accident occurred in 1989 that could have been fatal. Spain never tried to create atomic bombs again, and to this day it is unknown whether they would have actually succeeded. Some experts believe that this could have been achieved, but the Spanish army did not have the means to do so. experiment with them. It’s better this way, of course.
Source: Hiper Textual
