North Koreans Unveil Vast New Plant for Nuclear Use

[kristopher]

North Koreans Unveil Vast New Plant for Nuclear Use
By DAVID E. SANGER
Published: November 20, 2010

WASHINGTON — North Korea showed a visiting American nuclear scientist last week a vast new facility it secretly and rapidly built to enrich uranium, confronting the Obama administration with the prospect that the country is preparing to expand its nuclear arsenal or build a far more powerful type of atomic bomb.

Whether the calculated revelation is a negotiating ploy by North Korea or a signal that it plans to accelerate its weapons program even as it goes through a perilous leadership change, it creates a new challenge for President Obama at a moment when his program for gradual, global nuclear disarmament appears imperiled at home and abroad. The administration hurriedly began to brief allies and lawmakers on Friday and Saturday — and braced for an international debate over the repercussions.

The scientist, Siegfried S. Hecker, a Stanford professor who previously directed the Los Alamos National Laboratory, said in an interview that he had been “stunned” by the sophistication of the new plant, where he saw “hundreds and hundreds” of centrifuges that had just been installed, and that were operated from what he called “an ultra-modern control room.” The North Koreans claimed 2,000 centrifuges were already installed and running, he said.

American officials know that the plant did not exist in April 2009, when the last Americans and international inspectors were thrown out of the country. The speed with which it was built strongly suggests that the impoverished, isolated country, which tested its first nuclear device in 2006, had foreign help and evaded strict new United Nations Security Council sanctions imposed to punish its rejection of international controls.

A delegation...

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/21/world/asia/21intel.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

If anyone doubts how it is to go for nuclear weapons once a country acquires basic nuclear technology or how futile policing efforts are.
Depending on nuclear power as a response to climate change is going to require thousands of new reactors and that is going to come with a very real price tag in the area of proliferation.

[joshcryer]

1. BURN THE BOOKS.

[NNadir]

2. Really? This proves, in your august mind, that Belgium and Switzerland are at the brink of nuclear

war?

You do realize, don't you, that the only nuclear war took place 65 years ago launched by a country where there were zero nuclear power reactors?

You don't?

Well, I guess your knowledge of history is on a par with your knowledge of science.

By the way, does the recent war in Iraq mean that you're going to worry about oil diversion from F150 pickup trucks to napalm?

No?

Why am I not surprised?

[joshcryer]

3. "once a country acquires basic nuclear technology"

ALL nuclear technology should be DESTROYED.

That's the mentality of the OP.

BURN THE BOOKS.

[NNadir]

6. It is not unusal that people fear and loathe sciences that are over their heads.

The more I read this crap, the more convinced that there is tautomeric relationship between these cretins and creationists.

Excuse me, though, I have to build a nuclear war shelter in my back yard in case Romania launches a nuclear attack on New Jersey.

[txlibdem]

30. Especially since the Pukes have spent the past 30 years spreading fear and lies about science

Ronny Raygun was so anti science he spent half his time consulting with his own personal psychic.

[Name removed]

7. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[joshcryer]

9. Nope, simply acquiring nuclear technology = poliferation risk = scary bombs, burn the books

[David__77]

4. I love the "foreign help" conjecture...

Who is NY Times trying to set up for attack besides N. Korea? The truth is that N. Korea is perfectly capable of building such a plant on its own.

[joshcryer]

5. Indeed, it's mere scaremongering.

This is the information age, information is so readily available that you don't need "foreign entities" to help you do anything with a nuclear program, or any plethora of technologies which were once thought to be too difficult.

[bananas]

25. You don't know what you're talking about. nt

[joshcryer]

27. Deleted message

Says otherwise.

[XemaSab]

8. They should be burning coal instead

Besides, what do the people in Pyongyang need to keep the lights on for anyways?

[joshcryer]

10. Their coal production is nearly half what it was in the mid 80s.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/country/country_energy_data.cfm?fips=KN

Their social policies have been unbelievable on a scale of things. I cannot feel good about their lower carbon footprint in light of the atrocities their peoples must be experiencing daily.

[XemaSab]

14. Um, my post was

:sarcasm:

[joshcryer]

15. Yeah I know I just was looking in to it...

...everyone knows of the Blue Marble Night Skies with Korea. Empty patch of nothing. :(

[joshcryer]

12. Holy shit, go to that link, click any of the energy links, 1992, US sanctions NK over missile polif.

1992, NK's energy production from all sources bombs. Why? Because they cannot import the necessary technologies to continue building and maintaining their infrastructure because missile proliferation can be fairly broad (possibly broader than nuclear proliferation, but that's another discussion).

Sanctions completely destroy a country. Jesus. I can understand the US putting sanctions on NK for missile proliferation because we had SK and Japan to worry about, but I did not know that we did this and I certainly didn't recognize just how powerful it was.

[jpak]

18. They are building bombs not power reactors

FYI

[joshcryer]

21. Yes, that is apparent.

I don't see how you could think Xema overlooked that.

[txlibdem]

31. I thought the snide a-holes in the media keep snarking that N. Korea never HAS the lights on

I just heard it again on the news last week, comparing how South Korea has lights on all over the place and N. Korea is dark at night. They should be encouraging North Koreans to "get with the program" and become energy wasters just like us.

[Confusious]

11. You're the only one who wants to give nuclear technology to those who don't have it

I don't. The biggest producers of CO2 already have nuclear power. Fewer still have nuclear weapons, but they are, or will be, at the top of the list of biggest producers of CO2.

Otherwise, why build up the issue?

One other thing. The United States has also signed the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. So have most of the countries in the world. We can't give away nuclear technology, or sell it, nor can countries who have signed it receive it.

[joshcryer]

13. I have no problem with countries like Argentina having nuclear technology.

I don't expect a country like Argentina to commit to serious sanctions in the event that they disallow inspections.

[jpak]

19. Ever been to the Chilean/Argentine frontier? It's militarized and mined in many places

Chilean and Argentine naval vessels actively patrol their shared sea frontiers as well.

They do not like each other - and there is internal political justification for Argentina to have a nuclear capability.

yup

[joshcryer]

22. There is absolutely *no* internal political justification for sanctions.

None. Absolutely nada. Zero. Zilch. Ridiculous.

[madokie]

16. You can bet your ass that if north Korea starts making nuclear bombs at the rate

some of the other nuclear countries did they will be selling them on the black market and that, my friends, can be taken to the bank.

rec

[joshcryer]

24. Oh yes, let's invade North Korea now.

Just when we were going to have SK/NK reconciliation, too.

[madokie]

28. How do we get from here to there

I mean how do you read into what I wrote to what you just typed?

[jpak]

17. The CIA needs to send NK a nice little worm

:D

But alas anyone who opposes North Korea's "peaceful" use of uranium enrichment is a racist - or so we are told.

yup

[David__77]

20. Not a racist, but an imperialist.

There is a difference. Imperialism needn't be racist, but it is definitely genocidal.

[joshcryer]

23. If North Korea had a peaceful nuclear program and allowed inspectors...

...yes it would be racist to think that they were evil for having nuclear power.

[GliderGuider]

26. Here's what Tom Lehrer had to say about all this back in 1965.

Who's Next?

First we got the bomb, and that was good,
'Cause we love peace and motherhood.
Then Russia got the bomb, but that's okay,
'Cause the balance of power's maintained that way.
Who's next?

France got the bomb, but don't you grieve,
'Cause they're on our side (I believe).
China got the bomb, but have no fears,
They can't wipe us out for at least five years.
Who's next?

Then Indonesia claimed that they
Were gonna get one any day.
South Africa wants two, that's right:
One for the black and one for the white.
Who's next?

Egypt's gonna get one too,
Just to use on you know who.
So Israel's getting tense.
Wants one in self defense.
"The Lord's our shepherd," says the psalm,
But just in case, we better get a bomb.
Who's next?

Luxembourg is next to go,
And (who knows?) maybe Monaco.
We'll try to stay serene and calm
When Alabama gets the bomb...

[kristopher]

29. I expected you to prefer the pithiness of the Kingston trio circa 1959

The Merry Minuet

They're rioting in Africa.
They're starving in Spain.
There's hurricanes in Florida, and Texas needs rain.

The whole world is festering with unhappy souls; the French hate the Germans, the Germans hate the Poles.
Italians hate Yugoslavs, South Africans hate the Dutch. And I don't like anybody very much!

But we can be tranquil and thankful and proud, for man's been endowed with a mushroom-shaped cloud.

And we know for certain that some lovely day, someone will set the spark off... and we will all be blown away.

They're rioting in Africa.
There's strife in Iran.
What nature doesn't do to us... will be done by our fellow man.