complex
By Jamie Crawford
North Korea may be increasing its ability to
enrich uranium at its Yongbyon nuclear
complex, according to an analysis of recent
satellite imagery.
The Institute for Science and International
Security report concluded that North Korea
appears to have greatly expanded a building
in the fuel fabrication complex that is used
for gas centrifuges in the uranium enrichment
process at the reactor facility.
The development amounts to a doubling in
size of the complex from its original
construction.
Construction on the building expansion
appears to have preceded an announcement
by the North Korean government earlier this
year that it planned on restart all the nuclear
facilities at the previously mothballed site.
"This announcement may have been partially
intended as an oblique effort to reveal this
new construction; one missed publicly at the
time," wrote David Albright and Robert
Avagyan, the authors of the report.
The imagery reveals an internal floor plan
divided into three sections according to the
report. In addition to two smaller rooms, the
larger area appears to be a cascade hall where
new centrifuges would be placed, Albright and
Avagyan said.
While North Korea said the Yongbyon plant
contained about 2,000 centrifuges in 2010,
Albright and Avagyan said the new building
could possibly accommodate up to 4,000,
which would allow an increase in the nuclear
fuel processing cycle.
Given the opaque nature of the North Korean
government, it is impossible to know whether
its assertion that it is only processing low-
enriched uranium (LEU), compared to a more
highly enriched fuel needed for nuclear
weapons, is true.
"The extent of North Korea's centrifuge
enrichment infrastructure is not fully known,
and it is possible that some LEU produced in
this facility could have been further enriched
at a secret centrifuge site to produce weapon-
grade uranium," Albright and Avagyan wrote.
"A significant question remains whether North
Korea has made weapon-grade uranium, and
if so, how much it has made."
While North Korea detonated plutonium-based
atomic devices in 2006 and 2009, enriched
uranium is generally considered a more
effective material for making weapons. The
country revealed it had a duel uranium
enrichment program in 2010. It is unknown if
North Korea's most recent nuclear test in
February was plutonium or uranium based.
A doubling of capacity at the site would mean
that annual weapons grade production would
double to 68 kilograms the report said, while
noting that some of that output could be used
to make LEU for the experimental light water
reactor at Yongbyon.
"A more realistic estimate is that doubling the
capacity would allow for an increase in the
production of enough weapon-grade uranium
for up to two nuclear weapons per year,"
Albright and Avagyan said.
Analysts who follow North Korea said the
developments are potentially worrying due to
the unknown nature of the uranium program
in North Korea.
Joseph Cirincione, who studies global nuclear
proliferation for the Ploughshares Fund, said
current estimates show the North has four to
eight nuclear weapons from their plutonium
program.
If the centrifuges to enrich uranium were
proven to work "they could generate dozens
of new bombs in the next 10 years," he said.
But Cirincione cautioned the latest
construction, while possibly a true addition to
its enrichment facilities, could also be more
of an effort to put "on a new roof" in order to
get incentives from the United States to back
away from its nuclear ambitions.
"This underlines the need to restart
negotiations [with North Korea] in order to get
the intelligence to understand the scope of
their program, and to find ways to stop it,"
Cirincione said.
The latest report came on the heels of two
other findings over the uncertain nature of
North Korea's long-range missile programs.
Satellite imagery released last month showed
North Korea moving ahead with efforts to
improve and possibly modernize its missile
program through a series of engine tests.
But an analysis of separate images a few
weeks later suggested the North appeared to
have stopped work on a long-range missile
launch site.
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