
North Korea Is Starting Up a Nuclear Reactor - johnny313
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/03/27/world/asia/north-korea-nuclear.html
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Ice_cream_suit
There are over 100 nuclear reactors in the USA. A significant number of these
ARE used for nuclear warhead production.

Different rules for us and for our enemies of the moment.... Geopolitics is so
much fun.

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matthewmacleod
_Different rules for us and for our enemies of the moment_

I don't want to be reductive, but isn't this obvious?

While I'd rather there were no nuclear weapons, there are some regimes that I
trust more than others to have some technologies. Is it unreasonable to think
that?

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danbruc
You have to change your point of view, from the North Korean point of view it
is obviously better if they have the nukes because they don't trust the USA.
If you think it would be okay for the USA to blow up a North Korean reactor to
prevent them from producing more Plutonium then it would be equally legitimate
for North Korea to blow up US nuclear facilities. It is not impossible to
justify applying different rules to different countries but you have to be
careful to not simply assume you are right or better or stronger.

~~~
dogma1138
Like it or not the US has at least the capacity to handle nukes with
responsibility and to produce “safe” nukes. It’s also has a well defined and
stable chain of command and government.

The reason the world shakes when India and Pakistan are squabbling is because
thier nukes are not up to standards they likely have less failsafe than what
the US had during WW2, they lack the required central command structure and
launch capability lies within the hands of field commanders it’s quite
different than what the established nuclear powers have.

This whole moral relativism has to stop.

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digi_owl
Lets see, the Cuban Missile Crisis is a nice place to start.

Set in motion in part because USA had placed missiles in Turkey and USSR
attempted to do the same in Cuba.

Never mind having launch codes set to all zeros for a number of years.

And more than a few soiled pants moments where live nukes have been mismanaged
(like having a B-52 fly across the nation with a live one in the bay, because
someone got it and a training bomb confused).

Sorry to say but USA all too often come across as teenagers seen by foreign
eyes.

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lttlrck
A teenager would have hidden those lapses.

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alphabettsy
Is it me or is the electricity generation bit barely mentioned?

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johnny313
It seems like there is some ambiguity around the purpose of the reactor:

"It has the potential to make 25 to 30 megawatts of electricity, enough to
power a small town. The plant could also potentially produce about 20
kilograms of weapons-grade plutonium each year"

A bit further down the article says:

"Analysts also found some evidence that could support North Korea’s assertion
that the new reactor would be used for power generation. Satellite images
appeared to show that power lines and a transmission tower had been erected
around the site."

Without weapons inspectors, or some other outside group taking a look, there
is no way to know for sure.

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eloff
As far as I know, a reactor can be used for both purposes at the same time.

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ExcelSaga
To be efficient as a power plant a reactor needs to spend most of its time
operating. If you want to make nuclear material for bombs with this kind of
reactor it will enter a number of startup-shutdown cycles, which would make it
inefficient, and would be very noticeable. Of course they recently extended
the coolant outflow quite a bit to mask the thermal signature of operation,
but it should still be possible to determine a rough operational schedule.

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trisimix
Hey good for them.

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some_random
If it's for power generation, absolutely.

>But the new reactor can also make plutonium

and

>It has the potential to make 25 to 30 megawatts of electricity, enough to
power a small town. The plant could also potentially produce about 20
kilograms of weapons-grade plutonium each year, according to the Institute for
Science and International Security

I'm not convinced it's for power generation to be honest.

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ttul
It’s for making plutonium. A 30MW plant is a TINY source of electricity. You
don’t build a 30MW plant for power. If you need that amount of power, you
build a tiny hydro dam or gas power plant.

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sgtmas2006
What's the power demand actually like in NK?

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ttul
LoL probably about 30MW for the whole country.

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Antifragile1
Don't these media clowns always point out the fact that picture taken during
the night of asia shows North Korea as the darkest country? And now that they
want to do something about it, it's a problem too?

