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Interview With David Albright

Aired May 09, 2003 - 13:36   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: So, how big is the nuclear threat in North Korea? A question a lot of us have been asking of late. It's a question also the Bush administration is trying to answer. Part of the reason there is increasing concern about North Korea has to do with this idea of reprocessing and creating plutonium. But what is this process, and why would it be seen as a threat, and how could the West possibly detect it?
Joining me to sort through a lot of this information is David Albright. He is a physicist and president of the Institute for Science and International Security, or much easier, ISIS in Washington.

Mr. Albright, good to have you with us again.

DAVID ALBRIGHT, ISIS: Good to be here.

O'BRIEN: All right. Big picture, first of all, as we -- I want to get into the map here and move in on the location that has been the focus of so much attention, Yongbyon. Is that, as best we know, really the only place North Koreans have focused their attention on creating fissile materials, nuclear materials?

ALBRIGHT: Well, in terms of making plutonium, that's the only site that we know of. There is another site, which is unknown (ph), where they are preparing to make another fissile material called highly enriched uranium, and that is at the heart of this controversy, but, again, the United States does not know where that is.

O'BRIEN: All right. Let's give people the lay of the land. This is Yongbyon, and this is imagery which comes to us from Space Imaging, and as we zoom in on this 5 megawatt reactor, I want to ask one thing first of all, this reactor here that produces 5 megawatts of electricity, how much electricity, really, is that?

ALBRIGHT: It's a very small amount. It feeds a local grid, but it's not significant. It's certainly not the reason the reactor was built. The reactor was built by North Korea to make plutonium that can be used in nuclear weapons, and to recover costs and derive some benefit of the heat generated by the reactor, it produces electricity.

O'BRIEN: All right. I've highlighted the reactor here. Right next to it is the place where the reprocessing occurs, is that correct? Or is that in the other facility?

ALBRIGHT: No, that another -- that's where the irradiated fuel that comes out of the reactor after a few years -- and that's stored there. It has to be protected...

O'BRIEN: So fuel rods?

ALBRIGHT: Yes, fuel rods, and it's where the plutonium is.

O'BRIEN: Let me just show you one thing -- I want to give you a sense of how the West is able to determine if this facility is up and running. We have an image which was captured -- I'm going to overlay it. Look in the right-hand part of your screen. It's from March 8, and as you can see there, that cooling tower suddenly has some steam coming from it? What does that tell you, David Albright, as I'll toggle back and forth as you talk about it.

ALBRIGHT: Well, what that says is they're trying to eject heat from the reactor. The reactor's on, producing heat, and that they're trying to get rid of it.

O'BRIEN: All right. So, in theory, what's happening there is they're creating the building blocks for plutonium, because essentially what you do is you have to have fission to create plutonium, correct?

ALBRIGHT: That's right. That's right. And so there are neutrons produced in the fissioning. Those neutrons strike some other uranium atoms, and then that becomes plutonium.

O'BRIEN: All right. We're going about a mile away as the crow flies, same facility, to the reprocessing plant that I kind of jumped the gun on here. This long building here is the focus of a lot of attention. What goes on inside this building?

ALBRIGHT: Well, when you have the irradiated fuel -- the plutonium exists in there in a very dilute form. And so what you want to do is basically find a way to get the plutonium out of all this other uranium, this radioactive material that has been produced by the fissioning of uranium. And so, basically, it's a very elaborate chemical dissolving process, and separation process, where you end up with some plutonium, either in a powder form, or perhaps as kind of a metal puck.

O'BRIEN: All right. Well, you know what? Let's show people how it works. We've created an animation here, and I want to just offer up a bit of a disclaimer here. This is symbolic-type of animation. We don't know precisely what it looks like there, obviously, there is no human intelligence on the ground that we would have access to anyway. But to the extent that this shows, at least schematically, how processes work. We are going to run through it here. First of all, the point to be made here, David Albright, is that this stuff, once it comes out, these spent fuel rods, are real hot, aren't they?

ALBRIGHT: That is right. They are very radioactive. They are -- they can be hot, and they're moved from the spent fuel pond to the radiochemical laboratory by truck, and they're moved in canisters. The fuel is taken out mechanically, remotely, because it's radioactive. O'BRIEN: And we have shown one rod here. Typically, what they do is take about 20 of them and they stick them in a vat, just like you see here. What goes on when those rods go in the vat?

ALBRIGHT: Well, the first vat would really dissolve off this -- it's a cladding, a metal cladding around the uranium, metal fuel, and you would dissolve it off.

After that cladding is dissolved off, then it -- you would put it into another vat, looking similar to this where you would actually dissolve the uranium metal, which contains plutonium, and that would go into a solution. Then you would be trying to separate off the plutonium from the uranium from the radioactive byproducts.

O'BRIEN: And while this is going on, you create something called Krypton 85.

ALBRIGHT: Right.

O'BRIEN: And that Krypton 85 is very useful, given the fact that there are no inspectors on the ground there in North Korea for the West to monitor what's going on there. Tell us about what happens with Krypton 85.

ALBRIGHT: Well, Krypton 85 is emitted when the fuel is dissolved, and it is a radioactive material that is inert, it doesn't react with anything. It goes a long distance, and it survives in the environment a long time because its half-life is ten years. And so you can actually detect this material at a distance.

I would assume that some embassies friendly to us in Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea, have Krypton 85 detection equipment. There may be floating platforms on ships that the United States may deploy. And it's a really solid indicator of reprocessing activity.

O'BRIEN: All right. And presumably the -- that knowledge is in the hands of the United States, if that Krypton 85 exists.

Finally, the last step in all of this, it goes into sort of a glove box, and eventually what happens is it is purified, reprocessed, sifted if you will, down to these kind of hockey pucks. The idea is to get about 11 pounds worth of plutonium per weapon. Doing the math on all that, how long would it take North Korea to produce a weapon?

ALBRIGHT: Well, this is -- this is if the process -- you can go another way, but basically, what these hockey pucks are metal, maybe a kilogram or two kilograms in mass, and they are then taken and purified further or melted, cast and shaped, and then turned into nuclear weapons components. Now, typically, with the North Korean plant, it could make about a bomb's worth of plutonium every month from the irradiated fuel.

O'BRIEN: And just shortly, you think that's what they're doing right this moment?

ALBRIGHT: It looks like it. It looks like the plant is operating. I mean, there's always some uncertainty about that. Krypton 85 has not been detected as far as I know, but they could be -- I think there's a growing consensus that they're in the early stages of operating the radiochemical laboratory.

O'BRIEN: All right, David Albright. Thanks for explaining all that for us. We appreciate it. That helps us understand quite a bit.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com







Aired May 9, 2003 - 13:36   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: So, how big is the nuclear threat in North Korea? A question a lot of us have been asking of late. It's a question also the Bush administration is trying to answer. Part of the reason there is increasing concern about North Korea has to do with this idea of reprocessing and creating plutonium. But what is this process, and why would it be seen as a threat, and how could the West possibly detect it?
Joining me to sort through a lot of this information is David Albright. He is a physicist and president of the Institute for Science and International Security, or much easier, ISIS in Washington.

Mr. Albright, good to have you with us again.

DAVID ALBRIGHT, ISIS: Good to be here.

O'BRIEN: All right. Big picture, first of all, as we -- I want to get into the map here and move in on the location that has been the focus of so much attention, Yongbyon. Is that, as best we know, really the only place North Koreans have focused their attention on creating fissile materials, nuclear materials?

ALBRIGHT: Well, in terms of making plutonium, that's the only site that we know of. There is another site, which is unknown (ph), where they are preparing to make another fissile material called highly enriched uranium, and that is at the heart of this controversy, but, again, the United States does not know where that is.

O'BRIEN: All right. Let's give people the lay of the land. This is Yongbyon, and this is imagery which comes to us from Space Imaging, and as we zoom in on this 5 megawatt reactor, I want to ask one thing first of all, this reactor here that produces 5 megawatts of electricity, how much electricity, really, is that?

ALBRIGHT: It's a very small amount. It feeds a local grid, but it's not significant. It's certainly not the reason the reactor was built. The reactor was built by North Korea to make plutonium that can be used in nuclear weapons, and to recover costs and derive some benefit of the heat generated by the reactor, it produces electricity.

O'BRIEN: All right. I've highlighted the reactor here. Right next to it is the place where the reprocessing occurs, is that correct? Or is that in the other facility?

ALBRIGHT: No, that another -- that's where the irradiated fuel that comes out of the reactor after a few years -- and that's stored there. It has to be protected...

O'BRIEN: So fuel rods?

ALBRIGHT: Yes, fuel rods, and it's where the plutonium is.

O'BRIEN: Let me just show you one thing -- I want to give you a sense of how the West is able to determine if this facility is up and running. We have an image which was captured -- I'm going to overlay it. Look in the right-hand part of your screen. It's from March 8, and as you can see there, that cooling tower suddenly has some steam coming from it? What does that tell you, David Albright, as I'll toggle back and forth as you talk about it.

ALBRIGHT: Well, what that says is they're trying to eject heat from the reactor. The reactor's on, producing heat, and that they're trying to get rid of it.

O'BRIEN: All right. So, in theory, what's happening there is they're creating the building blocks for plutonium, because essentially what you do is you have to have fission to create plutonium, correct?

ALBRIGHT: That's right. That's right. And so there are neutrons produced in the fissioning. Those neutrons strike some other uranium atoms, and then that becomes plutonium.

O'BRIEN: All right. We're going about a mile away as the crow flies, same facility, to the reprocessing plant that I kind of jumped the gun on here. This long building here is the focus of a lot of attention. What goes on inside this building?

ALBRIGHT: Well, when you have the irradiated fuel -- the plutonium exists in there in a very dilute form. And so what you want to do is basically find a way to get the plutonium out of all this other uranium, this radioactive material that has been produced by the fissioning of uranium. And so, basically, it's a very elaborate chemical dissolving process, and separation process, where you end up with some plutonium, either in a powder form, or perhaps as kind of a metal puck.

O'BRIEN: All right. Well, you know what? Let's show people how it works. We've created an animation here, and I want to just offer up a bit of a disclaimer here. This is symbolic-type of animation. We don't know precisely what it looks like there, obviously, there is no human intelligence on the ground that we would have access to anyway. But to the extent that this shows, at least schematically, how processes work. We are going to run through it here. First of all, the point to be made here, David Albright, is that this stuff, once it comes out, these spent fuel rods, are real hot, aren't they?

ALBRIGHT: That is right. They are very radioactive. They are -- they can be hot, and they're moved from the spent fuel pond to the radiochemical laboratory by truck, and they're moved in canisters. The fuel is taken out mechanically, remotely, because it's radioactive. O'BRIEN: And we have shown one rod here. Typically, what they do is take about 20 of them and they stick them in a vat, just like you see here. What goes on when those rods go in the vat?

ALBRIGHT: Well, the first vat would really dissolve off this -- it's a cladding, a metal cladding around the uranium, metal fuel, and you would dissolve it off.

After that cladding is dissolved off, then it -- you would put it into another vat, looking similar to this where you would actually dissolve the uranium metal, which contains plutonium, and that would go into a solution. Then you would be trying to separate off the plutonium from the uranium from the radioactive byproducts.

O'BRIEN: And while this is going on, you create something called Krypton 85.

ALBRIGHT: Right.

O'BRIEN: And that Krypton 85 is very useful, given the fact that there are no inspectors on the ground there in North Korea for the West to monitor what's going on there. Tell us about what happens with Krypton 85.

ALBRIGHT: Well, Krypton 85 is emitted when the fuel is dissolved, and it is a radioactive material that is inert, it doesn't react with anything. It goes a long distance, and it survives in the environment a long time because its half-life is ten years. And so you can actually detect this material at a distance.

I would assume that some embassies friendly to us in Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea, have Krypton 85 detection equipment. There may be floating platforms on ships that the United States may deploy. And it's a really solid indicator of reprocessing activity.

O'BRIEN: All right. And presumably the -- that knowledge is in the hands of the United States, if that Krypton 85 exists.

Finally, the last step in all of this, it goes into sort of a glove box, and eventually what happens is it is purified, reprocessed, sifted if you will, down to these kind of hockey pucks. The idea is to get about 11 pounds worth of plutonium per weapon. Doing the math on all that, how long would it take North Korea to produce a weapon?

ALBRIGHT: Well, this is -- this is if the process -- you can go another way, but basically, what these hockey pucks are metal, maybe a kilogram or two kilograms in mass, and they are then taken and purified further or melted, cast and shaped, and then turned into nuclear weapons components. Now, typically, with the North Korean plant, it could make about a bomb's worth of plutonium every month from the irradiated fuel.

O'BRIEN: And just shortly, you think that's what they're doing right this moment?

ALBRIGHT: It looks like it. It looks like the plant is operating. I mean, there's always some uncertainty about that. Krypton 85 has not been detected as far as I know, but they could be -- I think there's a growing consensus that they're in the early stages of operating the radiochemical laboratory.

O'BRIEN: All right, David Albright. Thanks for explaining all that for us. We appreciate it. That helps us understand quite a bit.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com