Satellite photographs taken earlier this month indicate building work at North Korea's Yongbyon nuclear site, seemingly substantiating the aspiring nuclear power's earlier promise to construct a light-water reactor, the Associated Press reported today (see GSN, Nov. 19).
In March, Pyongyang pledged to erect a light-water reactor that would operate on its own atomic fuel. Two U.S. experts on North Korea came back from a trip to the isolated state this month and said new work at Yongbyon had started.
Light-water reactors are generally intended for peaceful power programs, but such a plant would provide North Korea with a justification for uranium enrichment. The process can be used to produce reactor fuel or, at higher enrichment levels, weapons material.
The regime has used Yongbyon to produce plutonium for its nuclear-weapon program. In 2009, Pyongyang acknowledged that it was finalizing work on uranium enrichment.
The Institute for Science and International Security yesterday published commercial satellite photographs taken on November 4 that depict construction of a rectangular-shaped facility at Yongbyon. The Washington-based think tank assessed the North was building a 25 to 30 megawatt light-water reactor.
Former Los Alamos National Laboratory Director Siegfried Hecker, who traveled to North Korea this month with one-time U.S. envoy Charles Pritchard, told the think tank "that the new construction seen in the satellite imagery is indeed the construction of the experimental light-water reactor."
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