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North Korea Making 'Rapid' Upgrades to Nuclear Reactor Despite Summit Pledges

posted by janrinok on Wednesday June 27 2018, @06:46PM   Printer-friendly
from the actions-not-words dept.

DeathMonkey writes:

North Korea has continued to upgrade its only known nuclear reactor used to fuel its weapons program, satellite imagery has shown, despite ongoing negotiations with the US and a pledge to denuclearise.

Infrastructure improvements at the Yongbyon nuclear plant are "continuing at a rapid pace", according to an analysis by monitoring group 38 North of commercial satellite images taken on 21 June.

The cooling system for the plutonium production reactor has been modified and at least two new non-industrial buildings have been built on the site, possibly for use by visiting officials. A new engineering office building has been completed and construction has continued on support facilities throughout the complex, according to a blog post written by Frank V Pabian, Joseph S Bermudez Jr and Jack Liu.

"Infrastructure improvements continue at Yongbyon," Jenny Town, managing editor of 38 North, wrote on Twitter. "Underscores reason why an actual deal is necessary, not just a statement of lofty goals."

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jun/27/north-korea-nuclear-reactor-upgrades-summit-pledges

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  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Aegis on Wednesday June 27 2018, @10:45PM (1 child)

    by Aegis (6714) on Wednesday June 27 2018, @10:45PM (#699538)

    I don't see where it says "improving the cooling system...
    However, increasing the cooling capability sounds like...

    You wouldn't consider an increase in capability to be an improvement to the system?

    More precisely, weapons-grade plutonium is obtained from uranium irradiated to a low burnup.

    Except, that's not the type of plant under discussion. Yongbyon is a re-processing plant. Described in the paragraph following yours.

    Plutonium recovered from LWR spent fuel, while not weapons grade, can be used to produce nuclear weapons at all levels of sophistication,[11]

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 27 2018, @11:01PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 27 2018, @11:01PM (#699544)

    Im aware of the paragraph that followed what I quoted. It says it would be more difficult to get bombs out of it, bt not impossible. Anyway, I can see this thread is degenerating into trump false flaggers making his opponents look like morons. It is exactly like before his election. How do I filter this?