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A Return Trip to North Korea’s Yongbyon Nuclear Complex |
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Siegfried S. Hecker |
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정치외교연구센터 / 한반도와 미국 |
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참고자료 |
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정책보고서 |
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Center for International Security and Cooperation, Stanford University |
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2010/11/20 |
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On November 12, during my most recent visit to the Yongbyon Nuclear Complex
with Stanford University colleagues John W. Lewis and Robert Carlin, we were shown a
25 to 30 megawatt-electric (MWe) experimental light-water reactor (LWR) in the early
stages of construction. It is North Korea’s first attempt at LWR technology and we were
told it is proceeding with strictly indigenous resources and talent. The target date for
operation was said to be 2012, which appears much too optimistic.
At the fuel fabrication site, we were taken to a new facility that contained a
modern, small industrial-scale uranium enrichment facility with 2,000 centrifuges that
was recently completed and said to be producing low enriched uranium (LEU) destined
for fuel for the new reactor. Unlike all previously visited Yongbyon nuclear facilities, the
uranium enrichment facility was ultra-modern and clean. We were also told that this
facility was constructed and operated strictly with indigenous resources and talent.
These facilities appear to be designed primarily for civilian nuclear power, not to
boost North Korea’s military capability. That can be accomplished much more
expeditiously by restarting the dormant 5 MWe gas-graphite reactor, constructing a new,
larger gas-graphite reactor and conducting additional nuclear tests; but we saw no
evidence of continued plutonium production at Yongbyon. Nevertheless, the uranium
enrichment facilities could be readily converted to produce highly-enriched uranium
(HEU) bomb fuel (or parallel facilities could exist elsewhere) and the LWR could be run
in a mode to produce plutonium potentially suitable for bombs, but much less suitable
than that from their current reactor.
This visit allowed us to answer some questions about Pyongyang’s nuclear
directions; but it also raised many more. How the United States and its partners respond
to these developments may help to shape whether Pyongyang will rely more on the bomb
or begin a shift toward nuclear electricity, which it wants both for economic and
symbolic reasons. |
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iis-db.stanford.edu/pubs/23035/Yongbyonreport.pdf |
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※ 코리아연구원은 기획재정부에서 공익성기부금대상단체(2006-176호)로 선정되었으므로
연말정산 때 소득공제를 받으실 수 있습니다. |
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::: 코리아연구원 (KNSI : 새로운 코리아구상을 위한 연구원) :::
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Yongbyonreport_Siegfried S. Hecker.pdf
