Yongbyon Nuclear Scientific Research Center

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The 5 MWe experimental reactor

Korean name

Chosŏn'gŭl	녕변핵시설
Hancha	寧邊核施設
McCune-Reischauer	Nyŏngbyŏn haeksisŏl
Revised Romanization	Nyeongbyeon haeksiseol

The Yongbyon Nuclear Scientific Research Center^[1] is North Korea's major nuclear facility, operating its first nuclear reactors. It is located in the county of Nyŏngbyŏn in North Pyongan province, 103km north of Pyongyang.

[edit] Specifications

The major installations include all aspects of a Magnox nuclear reactor fuel cycle, based on the use of unenriched natural uranium fuel:

a fuel fabrication plant,
a 5 MWe experimental reactor producing power and district heating,
a short-term spent fuel storage facility,
a fuel reprocessing facility that recovers uranium and plutonium from spent fuel using the PUREX process.

Magnox spent fuel is not designed for long-term storage as both the casing and uranium metal core react with water, it is designed to be reprocessed within a few years of removal from a reactor. As a carbon dioxide cooled, graphite moderated Magnox reactor does not require difficult-to-produce enriched uranium fuel or heavy water moderator it is an attractive choice for a wholly indigenous nuclear reactor development.

[edit] History

The 5 MWe reactor, showing the fuel channels access ports

Construction of the 5 MWe experimental reactor began in 1980, and the reactor first went critical in August 1985. This reactor was an initial small technology proving reactor for a following development program of larger Magnox reactors. It operated intermittently until 1994 when it was shut down in accordance with the U.S.-North Korea Agreed Framework. Following the breakdown of the Agreed Framework in 2002, operation restarted in February 2003, creating plutonium within its fuel load at a rate of about 5 kg per year. The reactor fuel was replaced between April and June 2005. The spent nuclear fuel has been reprocessing with an estimated yield of about 45 kg of plutonium metal, some of which was used for the nuclear weapon involved in the 2006 North Korean nuclear test.^[2]

Yongbyon is also the site of a 50 MWe Magnox prototype power reactor, but construction was halted in 1994 about a year from completion in accord with the Agreed Framework, and by 2004 the structures and pipework had deteriorated badly. By 2005 North Korea had redesigned the plant, so reconstruction could commence.

Another 200 MWe Magnox fullscale power reactor was being constructed at Taechon, 20 km north-west of Yongbyon, until construction was also halted in 1994 in accord with the Agreed Framework. By 2005 reconstruction of this reactor was uneconomic.

The center also has an IRT-2M pool-type research reactor, supplied by the Soviet Union in 1963, operational since 1965.^[3] As the center has not received fresh fuel since Soviet times, this reactor is now only run occasionally to produce Iodine-131 for thyroid cancer radiation therapy.

[edit] 2007 shutdown

On Tuesday 13 February 2007, an agreement was reached at the Six party talks that North Korea will shut down and seal the Yongbyon nuclear facility, including the reprocessing facility and invite back International Atomic Energy Agency personnel to conduct all necessary monitoring and verifications. In return for this North Korea will receive emergency energy assistance from the other 5 parties in the form of 50,000 tons of heavy fuel oil.

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors arrived at the site on June 28 to discuss verification and monitoring arrangements for the shutdown.^[4] This had been delayed from April due to a dispute with the United States over Banco Delta Asia.^[5] On June 3 an anonymous South Korean government official indicated that the shutdown may start following the first oil shipment later in the month.^[6] On July 14, Sean McCormack stated that North Korea had told the US that the reactor had been shut down. He added that the US welcomed the news, and was awaiting verification from the IAEA team.^[7] The next day, IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei announced the UN's confirmation that the reactor had been shut down.^[8] On 18 July 2007, the IAEA confirmed that all five nuclear facilities at Yongbyon had been shut down.^[9]

In his Introductory Statement to the IAEA Board of Governors on 2008-03-03, the Director General stated that he could not provide an update on the disabling of the facilities, as it was not undertaken by the IAEA. All fuel rods from the 5 MW(e) Experimental Nuclear Power Plant and nuclear material generated by the disabling of the Nuclear Fuel Fabrication Plant were under IAEA containment and surveillance.^[10]