Yongbyon Nuclear Scientific Research Center

Yongbyon Nuclear Scientific Research Center
The 5 MWe experimental reactor
Korean name
Chosŏn'gŭl	녕변핵시설
Hancha	寧邊核設施
Revised Romanization	Nyeongbyeon haeksiseol
McCune–Reischauer	Nyŏngbyŏn haeksisŏl

The Yongbyon Nuclear Scientific Research Center is North Korea's major nuclear facility, operating its first nuclear reactors. It is located in the county of Nyŏngbyŏn in North Pyong'an Province, about 90 km north of Pyongyang. The center produced the fissile material for North Korea's nuclear weapon tests in 2006 and 2009, and since 2009 is developing indigenous light water reactor nuclear power station technology.

The major installations include all aspects of a Magnox nuclear reactor fuel cycle, based on the use of natural uranium fuel:

Magnox spent fuel is not designed for long-term storage as both the casing and uranium metal core react with water; it is designed to be reprocessed within a few years of removal from a reactor. As a carbon dioxide cooled, graphite moderated Magnox reactor does not require difficult-to-produce enriched uranium fuel or heavy water moderator it is an attractive choice for a wholly indigenous nuclear reactor development.

The Magnox facilities were disabled in 2007 in accord with the six-party talks agreement, but following the breakdown of that agreement were partially re-enabled in 2009 to reprocess existing stocks of spent fuel. On 15 September 2015, North Korea announced that the reactor had resumed operation.

The center also has an IRT-2000 pool-type research reactor, supplied by the Soviet Union in 1963, operational since 1965. The reactor fuel is IRT-2M type assemblies of 36% and 80% highly enriched uranium. As the center has not received fresh fuel since Soviet times, this reactor is now only run occasionally to produce iodine-131 for thyroid cancer radiation therapy.