North Korea: nuclear weapons – atomic bombs – fusion bomb & nuclear power plant
North Korea: nuclear weapons – atomic bombs – fusion bomb & nuclear power plant
The North Korean atom bomb and the blind spot of perception
The last nuclear tests of North Korea, the statements of the American president Tump in front of the UN and his announcement: „We will have no choice, but to totally destroy North Korea“ show the dangerous aggravation of the situation. The conflict takes on a dimension which not only can cause millions of victims, but also endangers the world peace. However, the aggravation of the crisis also shows what it means if neurotics are the leaders of nuclear states and possess the most awful weapons of destruction in the world during their childish-dangerous sandpit games.
The increasing danger of the proliferation of nuclear weapons based on the export of new atomic power plants to areas of tension and on the development and proliferation of new, small reactors is the big blind spot of the current reporting.
How did North Korea come to his atomic bombs?
1962, the government of North Korea decided to establish a nuclear research centre near Yŏngbyŏn. 1965 North Korea mounted a research reactor with a power of two megawatts in Yŏngbyŏn with Soviet help. It went into operation in 1967. At the same time, the construction of an own, small, second reactor with a power of five megawatts started. According to estimates, this reactor can produce up to eight kilograms of plutonium. After the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, Yŏngbyŏn is the only facility for the production of plutonium for the nuclear weapon program of North Korea.
While the world and the media look spellbound towards North Korea, the danger that more and more countries, dictatorships and despots acquire nuclear weapons using the detour of the so-called “peaceful use of the nuclear energy” is increasing worldwide.
On the 11th of December 2007, the French and the German environmental organisations CSFR and BUND have already criticised the dangerous project of the former French president Sarkozy to export nuclear power plants and therefore nuclear weapons to Libya and to other areas of tension in the Middle East. CSFR and BUND regarded this situation as a threat to international peace. The press statement was ignored by French and German media, because in 2007 Mr Gaddafi still was a “good, useful dictator” by which you could make good deals. Not even 10 years later it became clear how terrible a French nuclear power plant export would have been. If Mister Sarkozy had realised his plans of a nuclear power plant export to Libya earlier, the country would have possessed, like North Korea, quite fast plutonium and nuclear weapons.
Why do very sunny countries (in areas of tension) have to build nuclear power plants, although it would be much more economic to produce electricity via photovoltaics and wind power? Is the use of expensive nuclear power a strategy to achieve a gain in power based on the model of North Korea?
For PR and implementation reasons, nuclear power is readily presented as a low emission, climate-friendly type of energy generation, by which the goal of the climate conference in Paris (2015) can be achieved.
The North Korean atomic bomb arises out of the help of small nuclear power plants. At the same time, there are worldwide campaigns for new, small nuclear power plants, for thorium reactors, also called liquid fluoride reactors. These small “eco-friendly and green” thorium nuclear power plants are supposed to be built all around the world and the research is sponsored by EU-money. All these mini-reactors produce a amount of radioactivity that is as high as the one of many Hiroshima bombs. 8 kilos (weapons-grade) uranium 233 could be produced from 1,6 tons of thorium in one year. The IAEA expects that this amount of uranium is enough for the construction of a nuclear weapon.
The resuscitated idea of distributing many small and big nuclear power plants among the whole world is a global suicide program and a nuclear nightmare.
Nuclear power plants are dictator´s and terrorist’s favourites. The current nightmare of the North Korean nuclear arming would increase by the global export of new nuclear power plants to areas of tension and would grow as a result of “nice, small thorium reactors” infinitely.
Text: Axel Mayer, BUND-director Freiburg, vice president of TRAS Basel
Translation: Leon Brenner, Leon Sander
This side is still under construction.
