The monitors have been switched off. The cameras are being removed from their mounts, and the seals are broken. The guesthouse just off the main site no longer houses the IAEA three-person team or the four-person US experts group. By now, the equipment is probably being packed into boxes by the former North Korean hosts, after which it will be carefully catalogued and transferred to storage in some building on the sprawling Yongbyon site. There, it will gather dust until the next time inspectors visit the facility. That is,
if there will be a next time.
North Korea threatens to restart the facility, and there have been some educated guesses as to how fast this could be done. These guesses range from a couple of weeks, to six months, to possibly longer. Undeniably, it will take a year to get the entire facility back in order again, but some critical processes, such as the reprocessing of spent fuel, might get up and running by the summer of 2009. And this is possibly why the Russian Foreign Minister is about to visit Pyongyang quite soon, and why the Chinese are placing frantic phone calls to Washington DC.
But what are the North Korean’s required to do to get the plant up and running again? Despite wishes to the contrary, the
agreed minute on disablement was never released to the wider arms control community. However, some details were nevertheless leaked, quite possibly since some involved principals on the US side felt that the disablement steps were wholly inadequate.
The first disablement action was to unload the 5MWe reactor, and transfer spent fuel to the cooling pond. This action does not appear to have been completed. The North Korean's would now speed up their unloading operations, and transfer the remaining spent fuel rods to the cooling pond. It is possible that they would then ask the director of the Fuel Manufacturing plant to transfer the fresh load of fuel (pictured) to the GCR for reloading.
However, a number of immediate tasks would need to be completed before then. First, the reactor's director would need to instruct his people to repipe the secondary cooling system and, obviously, rebuild the cooling tower, or jury-rig the system somehow. This is not likely to be completed before summer, so do not expect to see steam rising over Yongbyon until autumn. Naturally, the construction of the tower can be tracked by satellite. The reactor also needs to have its control rod mechanism reconnected.
At the reprocessing facility, work may progress slightly faster. The drive mechanism between the spent fuel receiving building and the hot cells need to be reconnected, and two steam lines would need to be re-attached and pressure-tested. Moreover, the drive mechanism for fuel cask transfers needs to be replaced, as well as some hot-cell doors. After these tasks are completed, the reprocessing facility is mostly ready for action. This can be done fairly soon, possible before July. The start of a reprocessing campaign can be detected through the release of radionuclides into the atmosphere.
The Fuel Fabrication Plant has also undergone some 'disablement'. In order to get the plant back in operation, the site director needs to reinstall all three uranium ore concentrate dissolver tanks, all seven uranium conversion furnaces, metal casting furnaces and the vacuum system, and eight machining lathes. Again, this is something that can be done in a matter of months.
The pressing question is, of course,
what happens next? The ejection of IAEA monitors and US experts will lead to a substantial degradation in knowledge of ground truth. While the North is unlikely to substantially add to its fissile material stockpile in 2009, larger scale production may be likely in the coming year. Of course, a new nuclear test cannot be ruled out. It's very likely, even, that the test site director has already received instructions to elevate his level of readiness.
Personally, I find it very difficult to see any easy way out of this predicament.
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