By John Hallam
In writing this article, I have elected to say relatively little about the matters that have received the greatest press attention, namely the threat of war, sanctions, the sanity and personal habits of North Korean leaders and the realpolitik of the situation, and have tried instead to focus attention on the somewhat neglected realities of the North Korean nuclear industry.
Writing about North Korea isn't easy. It's a "moving target", and a country about which very little is known. Every time the writer thinks he knows something, there's a new development. Just to emphasise the point, Kim Il Sung died on July 8, immediately before I started writing, adding yet another layer of uncertainty to what is already a complicated enough picture.
The best way into the maze is probably to take a look at the nuclear programs of both north and south Korea, and the relative proliferation proneness of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) program in comparison with South Korea, India, Pakistan and Japan.
A look at North Korea's nuclear program is enough to show that it is indeed modest — almost puny — in comparison with the nuclear programs of others.
Because of its economic isolation and its wish to "go it alone" consistent with its philosophy of "juche", North Korea has opted for a nuclear program based on "indigenous" technology which is in fact cloning copies of 30, 50, and 200Mw UK gas-cooled "magnox" designs of the 1950s.
At present, a 20-30Mw thermal gas-cooled reactor is operating, a 50Mwe reactor described as being a copy of the UK's Calder Hall plants is coming into operation in 1995-6, and a 200Mwe plant is scheduled to come into operation in 1996. As of June work on the 50Mwe plant had been slowed down, while work on the 200Mwe plant had been speeded up. (Nuclear Developments in the Asian and Pacific Region, ANSTO 1993, pp 9-10.)
The 20-30Mw thermal plant is located at Yongbyon together with a 5-8Mw IRT pool-type reactor. It is this reactor, about the same size as the Indonesian research reactor and the CIRUS facility in India, that has been the focus of IAEA concern.
But even industry journals display confusion between this reactor, the 50Mwe "magnox" plant under construction at Yongbyon, the 200Mwe plant under construction at Taechon, and the 5/8MwTh pool-type research reactor supplied by the Russians in 1965.
In contrast, South Korea has a much more substantial nuclear program. It has nine PWRs of 550-900Mwe and one Candu plant in operation, four PWRs and three Candu plants under construction, and "firm plans" for eight more PWRs and three more Candu plants.
Concern has been raised over the proliferative possibilities of North Korea's relatively more primitive gas-cooled reactors which, when the UK first used the design in the 1950s, were primarily meant for plutonium production, a process that demands the ability to refuel the reactor in operation. This is something that can't be done with PWR plants, though it can with Candu plants, of which South Korea will shortly have three.
One reason for this is that if fuel is kept in the reactor for long periods — optimum for electricity generation — there is a build up of "higher" isotopes of plutonium which is messy to use from a weapons point of view.
According to a number of sources, including ANSTO, the only reactor actually operating in the DPRK is a somewhat ageing 5Mw pool-type reactor supplied by the USSR and upgraded to 8MwTh in the 1980s. By comparison, Australia's own research reactor at Lucas Heights is of 10MwTh capacity.
Of the countries that have been the object of proliferation concerns, India has, as well as a large indigenous power reactor program based on Candu technology entirely outside the NPT framework, four research reactors including the 100MwTh Dhruva at Trombay, and the 40MwTh CIRUS from which the plutonium for India's 1974 "peaceful nuclear explosion" originated.
Pakistan has a comparatively modest 10Mw research reactor, but has chosen to develop nuclear weapons by means of the enrichment route, with uranium enrichment cascades at Kahuta.
What has caused additional alarm is the DPRK's reprocessing program. The DPRK has constructed a large reprocessing complex at the Yongbyon site. In 1992, the latest year for which definite information is available, civil works were 80% complete, but only 40% of the process equipment had been installed. The plant is described as "mammoth", at 180m long and six stories high, but has been assumed to be not yet operational. (Nuclear Fuel, February 28, 1994, p6.)
The DPRK seems to have duplicated certain aspects of a spent-fuel reprocessing plant operated by Eurochemic at Mol in Belgium from 1966-74 at its Yongbyon plant. Specifically, the Yongbyon plant copies techniques developed by Eurochemic for removing cladding from spent fuel and for bituminising medium-level waste.
The DPRK has admitted reprocessing and extracting a small amount (90 grams) of plutonium so far, which was declared to the IAEA in 1990. Obviously this could not have been done at the Yongbyon plant, as it was still very much under construction.
But Western officials and US intelligence say that the DPRK has produced quantities of waste that indicate that North Korea has actually produced much more than 90 grams of plutonium. This waste is at two sites one of which the IAEA has visited, and one of which is known only from spy-satellite photos. According to one official: "We know they have the Belgian technology. It remains to be seen whether they have used it yet." (NF, February 28 1994, p7.)
Suspicion that the DPRK may have extracted more plutonium than a mere 90 grams centres round a mysterious shutdown of the Yongbyon reactor in 1989. The DPRK claims that no fuel has been removed from the reactor since fuel was first inserted in 1986. However, according to a former official at Yongbyon who defected to South Korea in May the DPRK has secretly extracted 12kg of plutonium — enough for two bombs. In addition, in mid 1993, it was learned that the DPRK had converted some plutonium nitrate into metal — an indication that the DPRK has been developing the ability to make fissile cores. (Nucleonics Week, July 9, 1993, p2.)
In late 1993, it was widely reported that North Korea "had nukes" and that US action to stop the DPRK nuclear program was imminent. On October 15, 1993, the Pacific Rim Intelligence Report revealed that according to the South Korean embassy in France, France believed that North Korea had developed nuclear weapons. The French claim was based on photographic satellite analysis of the Yongbyon facility.
However, as of January this year, US analysts were themselves divided over just how close the DPRK is to actually having a bomb or bombs. Hard evidence is hard to come by. According to one White House official: "Both the CIA and the DIA are protecting themselves by openly suggesting that North Korea has already built a bomb".
According to the US State Department, there is "no hard information" showing that the DPRK has completed bomb development work.
As of July 8, North Korea and the US began a new round of negotiations in which the US wanted to get North Korea to promise not to develop nuclear weapons, while North Korea held out for program of US$2 billion worth of development aid in compensation for closing down its nuclear activities.
A number of things follow from all this. One is that the rulers of the DPRK — previously Kim Il Sung, now Kim Jong Il — are not irrational (though they quite capable of being bloody-minded) and should not be demonised. They do feel themselves cornered, and are not above using the most extreme threats. But they do have a rational calculus of interests that leads away from war and most likely away from sanctions. They may be amenable to using their entire presumed weapons program as a bargaining chip if they are offered sufficiently alluring carrots, and their attitude in Geneva immediately before the death of Kim Il Sung suggests they are holding out for just such carrots.
They do feel picked on and it is certainly true that the technical measures the IAEA is demanding in respect to the discharge of the Yongbyon fuel core are not ones it would impose on Australia in respect of Lucas Heights.
The scale and state of advancement of whatever weapons program the DPRK might have is nowhere near that of other proliferators, notably Pakistan, India, Israel, and South Africa (which now admits to having manufactured 7-8 warheads). Yet the pressure bought to bear on Pyongyang, and the demonising of its rulers as "nuts with nukes" was never applied, for example, to Pakistani military dictator General Zia Ul Haq. One cannot help feeling that a double standard is in operation.
Finally, one can't but observe after 17 years in the antinuclear movement that proliferation of this kind was repeatedly warned of by opponents of uranium mining as far back as the 1976-77 Ranger inquiry, and that the Ranger inquiry itself took these warnings very much on board.
In October 1976, the Ranger uranium inquiry warned in its first report: "The nuclear power industry is unintentionally contributing to an increased risk of nuclear war. This is the most serious hazard associated with the industry".
It's yet another argument for keeping Australia's uranium in the ground and out of the global nuclear fuel cycle.
[John Hallam is Friends of the Earth's Sydney Uranium Campaigner.]