The Wall Street Journal reports that North Korea has the capability to produce more uranium for nuclear weapons than has been known.
The Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University in the United States came to this conclusion as a result of analyzing satellite images of the Pyongsan uranium mining facility in North Korea from 2017 to 2020 with artificial intelligence and tracking changes in deforestation and land use to study North Korea's uranium mining activities. got off
"They are using only one-tenth to one-twentieth of their capacity," the report's author said.
In the report, the researchers estimated that North Korea's annual uranium mine production is 30,000 metric tons, but its maximum mining capacity could reach 360,000 metric tons a year.
These estimates suggest that North Korea has the ability to process uranium concentrates to obtain up to 340 kg of highly enriched uranium per year.
That's enough to make more than 20 nuclear bombs each year, the Wall Street Journal reported.
The US Army previously estimated that North Korea had the capacity to build six new nuclear bombs a year.
Stanford University researchers cited the results of other studies suggesting that North Korea has a uranium enrichment capacity that is estimated to be capable of producing 6 to 10 nuclear bombs a year. I decided that there is a possibility that this may not be able to keep up.
However, the researchers acknowledged that the estimation of this report has limitations in that it mainly relied on satellite images.
The Stanford University report on North Korea's nuclear capabilities came as North Korea did not stop developing nuclear weapons, the Wall Street Journal pointed out.
It is known that North Korea does not stop operating its nuclear facilities in Pyongsan and Yongbyon even after negotiations on denuclearization with the United States are halted.
In addition, recently, it has been working hard to develop new weapons, such as test-firing short-range ballistic missiles one after another.