Word: plutonium
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...make him halt his nuclear program? Possibly nothing. Kim must be aware that the West's demands will not stop once he ends production. Seung Soo Han, South Korea's ambassador to the U.S., says that his government is as intent on learning whether the North already has the plutonium for a bomb as in stopping Pyongyang from making new weapons. "Our ultimate aim," he says, "is to make the Korean peninsula nuclear free...
...North Korean 5-MW nuclear reactor at Yongbyon has about 8,000 uranium fuel rods. Plutonium is created as a by-product of the reactor's operation...
...past two weeks, spent fuel rods were removed and stored in cooling ponds before the IAEA was able to tag 300 rods that would enable the agency to verify if any plutonium was diverted...
...obtain weapons material, the rods can be dissolved in nitric acid, and plutonium can be separated, then chemically purfied to create weapons-grade plutonium...
...About 18 lbs. (8 kg.) of this enriched plutonium is needed to produce one fission bomb. The rods now contain enough material to make four or five bombs...