North Korea has shut down its 5 MWe reactor at Yongbyon, probably to unload spent fuel rods that will be reprocessed to recover plutonium for North Korea’s nuclear weapons program.
Senior North Korean officials recently informed Selig Harrison of the impending shutdown. Unloading the 8,000 fuel rods, which contain enough plutonium for two or more nuclear weapons, will take several months.
The physical evidence for the shutdown is pretty cool. The Institute for Science and International Security released two satellite images (one from Digital Globe) of Yongbyon from January and April. Compare the cooling towers at the bottom of the images.
See what’s different about April? No steam.
Seoul confirmed “through several channels” that North Korea shut down the reactor.
A U.S. official told AP that the shut down could also signal that “the reactor had run into mechanical trouble or that North Korea was bluffing to raise anxieties.” “It is still too murky to tell exactly what the North Koreans are doing,” one senior administration official “who is deeply immersed in the intelligence” told the New York Times.
Paul Adds:
South Korea’s semi-official Yonhap News Agency quotes an unnamed “senior government official” saying that Seoul believes North Korea suspended the reactor operation “temporarily for technical reasons,” but not to remove the fuel rods.
In other news, getting wasted and defecting to North Korea has to be one of the best drinking stories ever.
Paul’s Later Update:
Barbara Slavin has a good article in USAT featuring an interview with NK’s deputy ambassador to the UN. Han Song ryol said the reactor was stopped so NK could
remove the fuel to make bombs and “increase our deterrent” against a possible U.S. attack…