Dr. Jeffrey Lewis Profile picture
Aug 31, 2021 10 tweets 7 min read Read on X
The @iaeaorg announced that North Korea restarted its 5 MWe gas-graphite plutonium production reactor at Yongbyon in July. A short thread with some satellite images on open source monitoring of nuclear reactor operations.
The @iaeaorg observed that North Korea was discharging cooling water into the river. Reactors get very hot when they operate. North Korea cools the reactor core with CO2 gas (hence "gas-graphite") and then uses water in a secondary cooling loop.
If North Korea runs the reactor, it must dump hot water in the river or the core will melt. Water discharge signaling operations is what the @iaeaorg and the open source community saw over the summer. @planet got an especially pretty picture of water discharge on July 30.
But there are lots and lots pictures showing the reactor discharging water. Between @planet, @Maxar and @Airbus, we have 11 clear images in July and August. All but one show water being discharged. That suggests that reactor is operating more or less continuously.
North Korea originally used a cooling tower for the secondary cooling loop, but the Bush Administration insisted North Korea blow it up in 2008 because they wanted a photo op. That's not me being cynical, it's what officials told @GlennKesslerWP!
washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content… The destruction of the cooling tower is intended by U.S. off
Of course a cooling tower is only one option. When North Korea attempted to covertly build a similar reactor for Syria near Al Kibar (Deir Ezzor), it opted for an underground cistern and pump houses. That's also what North Korea has now done at Yongbyon
North Korea built one pump house in 2013 next to the Experimental Light Water Reactor (ELWR), then a second one in 2018 where the water is discharging now. We still have questions about how the cooling loops at Yongbyon for the two reactors relate to one another.
But the big take away here is North Korea is running the reactor and isn't particularly trying to hide it.
@38NorthNK has a nice write-up of the site using an August 25 image from @Airbus.
38north.org/2021/08/north-…
@dandeluce also wrote a story for @NBCNews based on our analysis and an image from @planet.
nbcnews.com/politics/natio…

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More from @ArmsControlWonk

Dec 12, 2024
A bunch of tankie accounts are reposting this claim that Russia can produce 25 Oreshnik IRBMs a month.

That's probably wrong. 🧵
militarywatchmagazine.com/article/ukrain…
The claim of 25 missiles a month is falsely attributed to the @DI_Ukraine. What @DI_Ukraine says, according to other news outlets, is 25 IRBMs per YEAR, not per MONTH.
babel.ua/news/113282-ro…
Oreshnik is the first two stages of the Yars missile. Oreshnik production rates should be similar to Yars production rates, which the Russians claim is "about 20 launchers and their supporting systems per year."
web.archive.org/web/2021041112…
Read 7 tweets
Nov 20, 2024
Russia has issued a new (2024) "Fundamentals of the State Policy of the Russian Federation in the Field of Nuclear Deterrence" (основы Государственной Политики Российской Федерации В Области Ядерного Сдерживания). Same wine, new bottle. 🧵.
static.kremlin.ru/media/events/f…
BLUF/TLDR: Four significant changes from 2020 but these changes are all (1) at the margin, (2) consistent with past Soviet/Russian policy, and (3) stuff that I believed was the policy in fact, even if it had been unstated.
It's also exactly what Putin foreshadowed last month.
kremlin.ru/events/preside…
Read 23 tweets
Nov 14, 2024
No, it probably can't. At least not anytime soon. A short 🧵.
1. The report was written by a think tank, not technical experts from the 🇺🇦 gov't.
2. 🇺🇦 has ~7 tons of reactor Pu, enough for several hundred simple-fission weapons.
3. The Pu is sitting in spent fuel. To use it, 🇺🇦 would have to build a separation plant, which would take years and cost hundreds of billions.
web.archive.org/web/2024111318…
First, some context. The document is just a report prepared by a think tank that will be presented at a conference. This very much stretches the definition of "news."👇 Image
Read 20 tweets
Nov 8, 2024
This is a great idea! If North Korea tests the Hwasan-31 "tactical" nuclear warhead, this is what we'll see. A short 🧵.
According to Kim Yo Jong, the explosive power or "yield" of the Hwasan-31, pictured below, is the same as 900 tons of TNT -- that's much smaller than the bombs dropped on Hiroshima (15,000 tons) or Nagasaki (21,000 tons). Image
Image
The first indication will be a statement from @USGS_Quakes. Some time after that, the @CTBTO will also issue a statement. Here is what those looked like for the last test. Image
Image
Read 7 tweets
Oct 4, 2024
I am coming around to the idea that Israel's stocks of Arrow-2 and -3 interceptors are either depleted from April or are being saved for more sensitive targets. A little thread on cost effectiveness at the margins.
The US fired 12 interceptors during this engagement from the destroyers Bulkeley and Cole. Assuming they were SM-3 interceptors, that represents the production run for an entire year, at a cost of about $400 million total. (Each interceptor is about $30 million.) Image
Image
Arrow-2 and -3 production rates are classified, but Arrow-3 is more expensive than SM-3 at about $50 million per interceptor. You can see lots of Israeli officials talking about the need to reduce the cost of interceptors and increase production rates.
defensedaily.com/israeli-arrow-…
Read 5 tweets
Sep 13, 2024
I think the three big takeaways are:
1. That's likely Kangson. It *is* an enrichment plant.
2. The centrifuges are more advanced than the ones Hecker described in 2010.
3. KCNA did not to show the plant staff or the control room. Someone read about STUXNET.
🧵
As @ColinZwirko reported, the @JamesMartinCNS OSINT team concluded last night that this facility was most likely the presumed uranium enrichment plant at Kangson. I spent the morning quadruple-checking. I think they're right.
nknews.org/pro/north-kore…
Here is the team's reasoning. North Korea released 5 images -- 4 inside the "big" hall and 1 inside the annex that @ColinZwirko first noticed under construction in March of this year.
nknews.org/pro/north-kore…
Read 18 tweets

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