The U.S. government and Central Intelligence Agency claimed North Korea might be able to finish reprocessing its nuclear fuel and would eventually produce a 50 megawatt-electric reactor by 2008, but some international scientists and non-governmental organizations questioned this claim, saying there is a lack of evidence of North Korea's construction of the 50-megawatt-electric reactor activities. However, whether North Korea is going to proceed with construction on the 50 and the 200 megawatt-electric reactors is still unknown.
Ever since 2003, when North Korea withdrew from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and removed the International Atomic Energy Agency, it has continuously produced plutonium to increase the size of its nuclear arsenal. Siegfried Hecker, a former director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory reported to the Arms Control Association (NGO) in December 2005 that North Korea has been able to produce enough plutonium for six or eight nuclear bombs since resuming its operation of nuclear production in early 2003.
According to nuclear scientists, a five megawatt-electric reactor can produce five to seven kilograms of plutonium, which is enough to create a nuclear bomb. Therefore, logically, if North Korea was able to make a 50 megawatt-electric reactor by 2008, it would have 17 nuclear bombs by then (some said seven to 10). More seriously, if North Korea started the 200 megawatt-electric reactor, 220 kilograms of plutonium per year would be enough for about 30 to 40 bombs.
In early 2003, the Center for Nonproliferation Studies (CNS) estimated if North Korea resumed its nuclear program, the existing facilities and the five megawatt-electric reactor it already had prior to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty would give it ready access to weapons-grade plutonium and allow it to restart the plutonium production process within weeks or a few months. Moreover, North Korea would continue to design and work on the new nuclear facilities. Within a few years North Korea would greatly expand the capacity of its nuclear production, which would become operational and allow it to produce more nuclear bombs.
In 2005, Defense Intelligence Agency analysts reported that besides North Korea's seven or eight plutonium bombs already on hand, it might have already produced as many as four to eight uranium bombs by the end of 2004. However, DIA reported it did not find any uranium bomb in North Korea. Commercial satellite images could not show evidence of North Korea making significant progress and the precise status of the HEU program because of security access difficulty. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) estimated in the end of 2005 that North Korea would produce approximately 100 kilograms of HEU per year starting in 2006.
Right now North Korea has about 3,000 researchers and scientists who study in the Soviet Union, China and Pakistan to make the nuclear facilities more accessible and operational. However, North Korea may not have sufficient natural resource or technical capabilities to speed up its plutonium and uranium programs. The Institute for Science and International Security said due to the long period of inactivity at the reactor site in North Korea and the effect of the weather on the unfinished reactor, the completion of its nuclear and uranium programs would likely take several years.
Although North Korea declared that it has not decided whether to start producing a 50 megawatt-electric reactor, it has already resumed its previous nuclear operations, and continues to ignore the UN's warning. At this point, however, due to access difficulties, no one knows how many nuclear bombs North Korea owns, and will have in the future.
Cass Lam is a senior in the School of Communication.
