North Koreas Light-Water Reactor Ambitions

On November 12, 2010, Pyongyang chose to reveal the constructionof a new light-water reactor (LWR) and a recently completedpilot uranium enrichment centrifuge plant.The LWR is meant to modernize North Korea’s nuclear powerprogram to finally produce much-needed electricity by nuclearmeans. Its construction represents a major shift in North Korea’snuclear strategy. Pyongyang abandoned its twenty-five-year pursuitof LWRs from foreign sources—first from the Soviet Union andlater from the United States. But its attempt to build one now raisesa series of critical questions: Will North Korea be able to build alight-water reactor without external help? Will it be safe? And willindigenous LWRs and centrifuge enrichment enhance its nuclearweapons program—based primarily on gas-graphite reactors—which Pyongyang is now apparently ready to abandon? We tracethe evolution and prospects of North Korea’s reactor programs,particularly its LWR ambitions, which resulted in Pyongyang joiningthe Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) in 1985, then becomingthe center piece of the Agreed Framework aimed at endingenmity between Pyongyang and Washington, and continued to befeatured as a critical part of Pyongyang’s Six Party negotiations—allbefore the 2009 decision to pursue LWRs on its own.