Tag Archives: Uranium

Exclusive: Possible early North Korean nuclear site found – report

A missile carried by a military vehicle in North Korea

By Jonathan Landay

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A U.S. policy institute said it may have located a secret facility used by North Korea in the early stages of building its program to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons, which if confirmed would be critical to the success of any future nuclear deal, according to a report seen by Reuters on Thursday.

The report by the Institute for Science and International Security said there has always been doubt about whether North Korea has disclosed all of its nuclear facilities. Confirming their location would be critical to the success of any future agreement to freeze and dismantle North Korea’s nuclear weapons program, it said.

The site, 27 miles (43 km) from the nuclear complex at Yongbyon, may have played a key role in development of centrifuges that refine uranium hexafluoride gas into low-enriched and highly enriched uranium, the report said.

“It is necessary to identify where North Korea enriches uranium and part of that is understanding where it has done it in the past,” said David Albright, the institute’s president.

What may once have been the early centrifuge research and development facility is believed to have been inside an aircraft part factory inside a mountain next to Panghyon Air Base. It was located using commercial satellite imagery, the report said.

It was unclear whether the aircraft part factory was still operational but information from defectors indicates there may be three production-scale centrifuge manufacturing plants operating in the country although their locations have not been confirmed, said Albright.

Tensions have been escalating between North Korea and South Korea, the United States and Japan over Pyongyang’s fourth underground nuclear test in January and a series of missile launches.

North Korea’s nuclear program is based on highly enriched uranium and plutonium separated from spent reactor fuel rods.

The reclusive government, which for more than a decade denied having a gas centrifuge program, in November 2010 revealed the existence of a production-scale gas centrifuge plant at Yongbyon but insisted it had no other such facilities.

In June 2000 a Japanese newspaper quoted Chinese sources as saying a facility was located inside Mount Chonma, the report said. Information recently obtained from “knowledgeable government officials” suggested the undeclared facility was associated with an underground aircraft parts factory, it said.

Working with Allsource Analysis, which interprets satellite imagery, the institute determined it most likely was Panghyon Aircraft Plant, which made parts for Soviet-supplied fighters.

The report quoted an unidentified official as saying the site could have held between 200 and 300 centrifuges.

(Reporting by Jonathan Landay; Editing by Yara Bayoumy and James Dalgleish)

Five Georgian citizens suspected of selling uranium

TBILISI (Reuters) – The security service in the former Soviet republic of Georgia said on Thursday it had detained five Georgian citizens who were trying to sell $3 million worth of radioactive uranium.

Security service officers did not say whether the group had a buyer for the uranium, nor where the group had acquired it.

World leaders have been concerned about the security of Soviet nuclear weapons since the Soviet Union’s demise in 1991. Concern has also grown that radical groups are seeking material with which to make a ‘dirty bomb’.

“The detainees were planning to sell nuclear material with total weights of 1 kilogram and 665 grams, which contained two radioactive isotopes – Uranium-238 and a small amount, 0.23 percent, of Uranium-235,” security service investigator Savle Motiashvili told a briefing.

Motiashvili added that given the gamma ray emission, direct and long-term exposure to the substances was dangerous for life and health.

A Tbilisi city court put the group into pre-trial custody. They face five to 10 years in prison if found guilty.

Georgia’s security service has foiled several attempts to sell uranium or other radioactive materials.

Earlier this month, they detained six Georgian and Armenian citizens who were trying to sell $200 million worth of the uranium-238 isotope.

In 2006, a resident of Russia’s North Ossetia region was arrested for trying to sell weapons-grade uranium for $1 million to agents he thought were radical Islamists. He was sentenced to 8 1/2 years in prison.

(Reporting by Margarita Antidze; Editing by Vladimir Soldatkin and Toby Chopra)

Study Finds Uranium Seeps into Two Major U.S. Aquifers

Researchers have found that about 2 million Americans in the Great Plains and central California are living close to sites that far exceed federal safety guidelines for uranium levels.

A recent study conducted by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln found uranium levels in the High Plains and Central Valley aquifers, two of the country’s most significant sources of drinking water and irrigation, are far above thresholds set forth by the Environmental Protection Agency.

The research showed that water in the High Plains aquifer, the largest in the United States, had uranium levels as high as 89 times the EPA-established standards. The water in California’s Central Valley aquifer, a source of irrigation for one of the country’s most important agricultural hubs, showed some uranium levels that were 180 times the guidelines set forth by the EPA.

Uranium is an element whose isotopes were famously used in the production of atomic bombs. Past studies have shown long-term exposure to water tainted by uranium can lead to high blood pressure and kidney damage, according to a news release accompanying the Nebraska study.

The researchers found the uranium contamination in most of the 275,000 water samples they collected was directly tied to nitrate, a more common water polluter that is found in chemical fertilizers and animal waste. The scientists say that nitrate interacts with the uranium that’s naturally present in the ground in a way that makes the material dissolve in groundwater.

About 78 percent of the contaminated sites had nitrates present, the study indicated. The researchers said the data indicated that the uranium levels weren’t predominantly the result of mining or any kind of nuclear fuel, but rather the reactions between nitrate and the element.

“It needs to be recognized that uranium is a widespread contaminant,” one of the Nebraska study’s researchers, Karrie Weber, said in a statement accompanying the research. “And we are creating this problem by producing a primary contaminant that leads to a secondary one.”

The researchers said that facilities to treat water can cost seven figures, which makes it hard for some smaller municipalities to buy them. And there are some people who receive their water from private wells and don’t tap into any kind of regulated municipal water system.

The Associated Press reported Monday that the uranium contamination has been so widely underreported that some people living in the affected areas didn’t even know it was an issue.

The news agency said it conducted its own tests on the private wells of five homes near Modesto, California, where officials spent $500,000 on upgrades to its water system that were designed to bring down uranium levels. The report indicated none of the homeowners knew uranium even had the potential to be a water pollutant, yet two of the five wells showed dangerous levels of it.

The High Plains aquifer supplies drinking and irrigation water to eight states from South Dakota to Texas, according to the Nebraska study. The Central Valley aquifer is a major water source for California and the state’s vital agriculture industry, which the state Department of Food and Agriculture said produces half of America’s domestically-grown fruits, nuts and vegetables. In all, the department said California growers and ranchers got $54 billion for last year’s products.

“When you start thinking about how much water is drawn from these aquifers, it’s substantial relative to anywhere else in the world,” Weber said in a statement. “These two aquifers are economically important — they play a significant role in feeding the nation — but they’re also important for health. What’s the point of having water if you can’t drink it or use it for irrigation?”

Iran Begins Deactivating Centrifuges But Still Shouting “Death to America”

Iran has begun the process of deactivating and decommissioning the first of thousands of centrifuges.  The centrifuges are used for enriching uranium and this action is in response to Iran’s part of it’s commitment according to the nuclear deal reached with U.S. and other major world powers.  

The head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, Ali Akbar Salehi, told Kyodo News agency, during a visit to Japan, that the entire process will “take some time.”  

“We have already started to take our measures vis-a-vis the removal of the centrifuge machines — the extra centrifuge machines,” Ali Akbar Salehi told Japan’s public broadcaster NHK, according to the Reuters news agency.

Iran needs to take most of its centrifuges, spread over two facilities, out of service, reducing their numbers from 19,000 to around 6,000. Also under the agreement Iran has promised to reduce its enrichment capabilities.

According to Reuters, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has stated his approval of the nuclear deal, allowing the work to begin, but the lawmakers said that the pace at which the centrifuges are being decommissioned is in direct violation of the Ayatollah’s directives.  

On Tuesday,  Ayatollah Ali Khamenei spoke to Iranian students in Tehran about mistrust for U.S. policies and the nuclear deal and said that the slogan “Death to America,” was directed at the U.S. government and not its people.  

“Your ‘Death to America’ slogan, and the cries by the Iranian nation, have strong logical support behind them,” he told the students, “Obviously by ‘Death to America’, we don’t mean death to the American people. The American nation is just like the rest of the nations. It … means death to U.S. policies and its arrogance.”

St. Louis Landfill Fire Gets Closer to Radioactive Waste

An underground fire at Bridgeton Landfill, located about 20 miles from downtown St. Louis, has been smoldering since 2010 with radioactive waste buried less than 1000 yards away at West Lake Landfill. The West Lake Landfill was designated as an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Superfund site in 1990, but the federal government is still deciding how to clean up the waste.

Missouri Attorney General  Koster released reports last month that showed  radioactive waste has contaminated trees and groundwater outside the perimeter of the landfill, where World War II-era uranium byproducts were dumped illegally in the 1970s.

“It’s no longer just underneath the landfill itself.  It has migrated through the air and groundwater and we have expert testimony that we’re going to present that shows that,” he said.

Koster is speaking of the on going lawsuit against the owner of  the Bridgeton and West Lake Landfills, Republic Services, to force them to clean up the locations.  Koster filed a lawsuit against the company in 2013, claiming negligent management and violation of state environmental laws, the Associated Press reported. The case is scheduled to go to trial in March 2016.

In a recently revealed St. Louis County emergency response plan it was noted that there is potential for radioactive fallout with no warning. At least 4 area school districts sent letters to parents on Monday explaining their plans to evacuate or shelter students and close off air intakes to limit exposure should the fire reach the radioactive dumping area.

Superintendent of the Pattonville School District wrote, “We remain frustrated by the situation at the landfill. This impacts not only our community, but the entire St. Louis region.”

Analysts with Republic Services show the company’s gas wells aimed at keeping the smoldering heat from reaching the radioactive waste have been successful. The Environmental Protection Agency, which oversees West Lake Landfill as a toxic Superfund site, has also made repeated assurances that it is safe and in an AP report has accused the Missouri Attorney General of causing “public angst and confusion.”

Landfill spokesman Russ Knocke told KMOX St. Louis, “Bridgeton Landfill, whose management team works closely with the region’s first responder community, is safe and intensively monitored.”

Iran Ready To Produce Nuclear Weapons

A major intelligence leader has told Congress that Iran has all the items it needs to build a nuclear weapon.

James Clapper, the Director of National Intelligence, sent a report to the Senate Intelligence Committee that states Iran has made enough significant advances in its nuclear program that if they chose to turn their back on world agreements and produce a nuclear weapon they could obtain it.

However, Clapper says that it would be very unlikely they would able to finish production of the weapon without other world powers discovering their work.

“We assess that Iran would not be able to divert safeguarded material and produce enough WGU (short for Weapons Grade Uranium) for a weapon before such activity would be discovered,” Clapper wrote. “The…central issue is its political will to do so.”

Clapper noted that Iran already has the largest stockpile of ballistic missiles in the Middle East and they are “inherently capable of delivering WMD (Weapons of Mass Destruction).”

Iran Says They Dismantled No Centrifuges

Iranian officials continue to speak out against the impressions given to media and the public by American officials regarding the recently implemented nuclear deal.

In an exclusive interview with CNN, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said that their country has not dismantled a single piece of nuclear equipment.  He admitted that they have stopped enriching uranium beyond 5% but said that they could increase that percentage at any time.

“The White House tries to portray it as basically a dismantling of Iran’s nuclear program. That is the word they use time and again,” Zarif told CNN. “If you find a single, a single word, that even closely resembles dismantling or could be defined as dismantling in the entire text, then I would take back my comment.”

International observers have stated that if Iran chose to cancel the deal and return to enrichment, they have enough centrifuges to create weapons grade nuclear material for a nuclear bomb within weeks.

Iran Still Weeks From Nuclear Bomb

A former deputy director for the International Atomic Energy Agency said that despite the deal Iran has made with the west, they will remain just weeks away from a viable nuclear weapon.

Olli Heinonen said that if Iran decided to end the agreement and turn up their centrifuges, they could enrich enough uranium in a matter of weeks to create one nuclear bomb.

“If this all happens in the next, let’s say, weeks, this is really true. They can start to produce 20-percent enriched uranium,” Heinonen said on WABC. “Now, in order to go fast for Iran, it actually needs to make several such tandem cascades.  They have to put perhaps some 6,000 centrifuges to work in this kind of a mode.  If they do that, which they can technically do, it will take certainly a little bit more than one night to do. But then once they have sorted it out, it would take about two, three weeks to have enough uranium hexafluoride high-enriched for one single weapon.”

Heinonen said if Iran follows through on their agreement to reduce their stockpiles of 20% enriched uranium to 5%, it would take longer for the country to produce a nuclear weapon.

Iran: We Can Reverse Nuclear Agreement In One Day

Iran’s top nuclear negotiator told citizens that the new agreement reached with western nations can be reversed in as little as one day.

Abbas Araghchi said that if Iran decides to enrich uranium to levels that can be used in nuclear weapons there would be little western nations could do to stop them before the beginning of the process.

“We can return again to 20 percent enrichment in less than one day and we can convert the [nuclear] material again. Therefore the structure of our nuclear program is preserved,” Araghchi said in the nationwide broadcast.  “Whenever we feel the other side is not following through with its commitments, whenever we feel there are other motives involved, whenever—now, say, under pressure from Congress or something else—they take action against their commitments, say put in place new sanctions, we will immediately revert to the current status quo. And we will again continue our nuclear program in the form that it is today.”

The White House and State Department refused to comment to Daily Beast regarding the Iranian negotiator’s comments.