Hi there BJers –
I lurk a lot and occasionally comment. I am a chemist and worked at the Los Alamos National Laboratory for 35 years. The things I worked on included laser isotope separation, hazardous waste destruction, environmental restoration. I worked on environmental projects in Estonia and Kazakhstan.
I run a blog, Nuclear Diner, with two friends who have somewhat similar resumes. Adam and Omnes Omnibus mentioned me in connection with Friday’s North Korean nuclear test. I’m here for an hour to answer your questions in the comments. Here’s what I posted about the test at Nuclear Diner:
Friday morning, North Korea tested another nuclear device underground at its test site. The yield appears to be larger than the last test, but determining that depends on how deep the test was and other factors that we don’t know. US planes are flying in the area to collect isotopes that may have been released in the test, but the North Koreans have been very skilled at containing their tests, so that may not give much information.
For the last two North Korean tests (five total), a lot of discussion takes place on Twitter, among experts in Seoul, Vienna, Washington, Monterey (CA), New Mexico, and other places. A good list of people to follow is here:
https://twitter.com/DetlefKroeze/status/774123258090094592
My impression so far: This is the latest in a series of tests in which the North Koreans are dealing with particular design features, probably only a few. It’s not possible to say what they are from the very little information we have from the tests. The North Korean statement says that the design is ready to be mated to the missiles they’ve been testing and they can produce the warheads in numbers. North Korea tends to exaggerate, but it is clear that that is their goal.
We need to engage the North Koreans in discussions. In the past, they have slowed their progress toward nuclear weapons when they have been in negotiations. They are making progress toward weapons that can be used against South Korea and Japan. With more work, they will be able to reach the United States.
This post at Nuclear Diner contains links to a number of news stories and background on the test.
Hunter Gathers
I agree. But there’s a decent chance that our next POTUS will be a cartoon in a human suit.
Emma
What would be, in your opinion, the best result we could expect from those discussions?
FlyingToaster
Welcome to our little pond!
You wrote:
Being nuclear-capable gives them insurance against invasion — e.g. Pakistan, India, Iran, Israel — but doesn’t actually deploying nukes put the DPRK in jeopardy?
Yes, WE (meaning South Korea, Japan, Russia, and their allies including us) need negotiations. What possible carrot can we offer the DPRK that would motivate them into negotiations?
Cheryl Rofer
Good questions! I see this is going to be a busy hour!
@Emma:
In the past, North Korea has slowed its progress toward nuclear capability while discussions were going on. In the longer term, it’s hard to see them giving up their nukes, but we might be able to get agreements on how they are deployed and inspections by outsiders.
Cheryl Rofer
@FlyingToaster:
Yes – one of the disincentives to have nuclear weapons is that it makes you a target, too. And last night the government of South Korea (ROK) let everyone know that if North Korea looks like it is going to attack, Pyongyang (North Korea’s capital) will be in ashes.
3am
Thank you for doing this! My apologies in advance for ignorance on the subject…
That’s amazing that they can aerially collect isotopes from the underground testing, but what sort of information would it provide if they could (efficacy/design of device)? Also, what is the source of NK fissile material? Domestic production? International market?
Lastly, and this may be a bit off topic/out of your area, but as a concerned observer of climate change I have been curious how nuclear would fit into a base load transition. I frequently (and have for years) hear a lot of enthusiasm from not-so-informed quarters about alternative reactor designs (molten sodium, pebble bed) and thorium fuel cycle. It seems like the thorium subject has picked up some momentum, and there’s even some progress on the next gen designs – do you have an opinion you’d be willing to share of the current state of the technology?
JPL
@Cheryl Rofer: Would that be possible without the help of neighbors? Has there been a response from China?
Amir Khalid
@Cheryl Rofer:
They might well see being negotiated out of their nuke programme, the way Iran was, as a humiliating defeat that they must avoid at all events. I know I would, if I were in North Korea’s position; If I don’t have nukes, the big boys won’t take me seriously.
Cheryl Rofer
@FlyingToaster:
That depends on how DPRK and its Young Leader see the world and how they value their nuclear program. In the 1990s, they were willing to trade suspension of their nuclear weapons program for food, oil for power plants, and the promise of a couple of nuclear power plants. Apparently the US has approached them again recently. For starters, the offer was a nonagression pact in return for denuclearization. Not much detail available on that yet.
debbie
@Hunter Gathers:
Negotiations won’t happen without China’s influence, which I’m not sure they’re willing to provide.
Cheryl Rofer
@3am:
Depending on how big a sample, it would be possible to deduce some things about efficacy and design of the device. One of the big things would be whether there is a thermonuclear component. At the yields we’re seeing, probably not much, but it would be interesting to see if they’re trying to make that work. Unfortunately, North Korea has been VERY good at containing their tests, so IIRC there were no isotope results for the last one, and minimal for the one before, not enough to infer much at all.
Cheryl Rofer
@3am:
They have a small reactor, from which they extracted plutonium a few years back. It has appeared recently that they may be doing another run to extract more plutonium. They also have a uranium enrichment facility which was doubled in size a few years ago. There are suspicions that there are other enrichment facilities, but we don’t know where they are.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
My understanding is one can tell a lot about a bomb design from the isotopes collected (e.g. what was figured out about early Soviet tests). But what if NK did successfully contain the explosion and bi-products?
Is there anything that can be figured out from, say, the seismic signatures or any other means that would say whether it was “just” an implosion bomb or whether it was some sort of “boosted” design (with tritium or whatever added to increase the yield)?
My (limited) understanding (from press reports) is that lots of the bad actors have the AQ Khan bomb design and I believe everyone assumes that NK does as well. But is it safe to assume that they’re actually using that? Could it have even be just a simple “gun” design? IOW, could they be so far behind that they haven’t even figured out implosion?
I could imagine a scenario where Kim is screaming “I need a bomb yesterday. Do it!” and the scientists/engineers having to make something quickly and the only way to do it is via gun design. (I admit that since the Khan design seems to work well enough (at least to get to < 10kT yields) and has been deployed by them (correct?), this final scenario seems unlikely or at least can't be assumed to be true.)
(I won't be offended if you can't answer these questions for whatever reasons. :-)
Thanks for doing this!
Cheers,
Scott.
p.a.
@debbie: What benny to China from having Crazy Uncle NoLiberty as a neighbor/client w a big effin target on its head? Is NK to China as Israel to US: tail wagging dog?
Cheryl Rofer
@3am:
This is a topic I’d like to write more about. We probably will need nuclear to deal with climate change – it’s hard to fit renewables into baseload. There is a lot of enthusiasm in several quarters, not all justified. Thorium particularly picks up some fanatics. But there are good features in the new ideas. Maybe another AMA one of these days?
MattF
One hard question is about the physical size of the NK bomb. How is that affected by the technology level of the device?
Cheryl Rofer
@JPL:
The last set of talks was six-party. Not sure I can list them from memory, but China is definitely one of them. For China’s latest response, keep an eye on reports of the United Nations Security Council discussions and what China vetoes.
China supplies food and electricity to North Korea. They’re not fond of the idea of North Korea having nukes, but they don’t want a war either. Nor are they fond of the idea of a regime breakdown that would send refugees into China, nor a unified Korea under strong South Korean influence. So muddling through probably seems the best option to them.
SiubhanDuinne
@Cheryl Rofer:
Thanks so much for doing this and sharing your expertise, Cheryl. I for one would love to see you do a climate-change AMA.
Cheryl Rofer
@Amir Khalid:
Definitely part of the problem. Most serious commentators believe that it is no longer possible to negotiate North Korea’s nukes away, just to limit production and calm them down some.
Cheryl Rofer
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
They have been very good at that. We know very little about their bomb designs beyond what we speculate.
Only that a two-stage thermonuclear design, if successful, would give a much bigger yield than what we’ve seen. No way to tell, without isotope results, if boosting is being used.
Poopyman
@Cheryl Rofer: China is not terribly happy with their neighbors these days, but it does take some of the attention away from China’s expansion in the South China Sea, which I’m sure they’re happy to see.
realbtl
Cheryl- Greetings from another ex-AVLIS worker though I was out in CA. No real questions, just wanted to say thanks to you, Adam and John for hosting what looks like a very interesting post.
Amir Khalid
@MattF:
This test explosion was reportedly around 10 Ktonnes in yield, smaller than the Hiroshima device, but surely more than adequately destructive. Assuming that they’re after something small enough to put on a missile, it’s my guess — subject to Cheryl’s confirmation — that the North Koreans are reproducing first-gen, WWII-era nuclear weapons tech.
Gene108
How much damage did Bush & Co do to our ability to directly negotiate with N. Korea? They mocked the Clinton era deal as “appeasement” and a bad idea, but with their disengagement N. Korea got the bomb by 2006.
IIRC, there were six party talks to deal with N. Korea. Has this lead to N. Korea playing one party off against the other to get better deals for itself, without conceding anything?
They did this in the Cold War days, when the USSR and China wanted to expand their spheres of influence in the Communist bloc.
Cheryl Rofer
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
The general idea of implosion is widely enough known that we can be certain they know about it. We have no idea what their design is. Earlier in the year, they showed off some pictures of what they claim to be their bomb design – I used one at Nuclear Diner in the post I reproduced above. It’s spherical, which implies implosion.
They’re pretty smart and innovative in their missile designs. No reason to assume they’re anything else in designing nuclear weapons.
Cheryl Rofer
@MattF:
Their goal is to develop a warhead to fit the missiles they’ve been testing, which are mostly SCUD-related designs. They claim to have done that with this latest test.
Overall, smaller warheads need cleverer design.
debbie
@p.a.:
Try telling that to China!
Cheryl Rofer
Have y’all seen photos of their bomb? Or what they claim to be their bomb, anyway.
Cheryl Rofer
@Amir Khalid:
Estimates (which are very uncertain) range up to 30 kilotons. They are beyond first gen. A photo of what they claim to be their bomb here.
amk
What do you think of South Korea’s ‘we can and we will annihilate Pyongyang’ posture today?
BR
@Hunter Gathers:
The way to help prevent that is to volunteer.
Immanentize
Thank you so much for joining us. I teach international criminal law and the NNPT is part of the curriculum. So my first question is — these seem still to have the yields (as mentioned above) of first gen atomic bombs, but NK claimed they are H-bombs. What is the latest on this issue?
My second question is uranium source — are they using self-made enriched uranium or importing? Or are they harvesting spent reactor fuel plutonium?
Again, thanks!
Hunter Gathers
So what happens if the cartoon in a human suit actually becomes POTUS? How screwed will we be diplomatically in that area of the globe?
Schlemazel
@p.a.:
NK is the shiny object the Chinese use to distract the US from more useful endeavors while they replace us as the worlds super power. They have a lot of help from the US stumbling blindly and wasting our power in the Middle East But having the DPK ready when needed serves the PRC very well.
Amir Khalid
@Gene108:
I’d hope that the negotiating group would know better than to present the North Koreans with anything but a united front. But there’s always that worrisome possibility …
Cheryl Rofer
@Gene108:
Oh man, don’t get me going on this! I was rampaging around Twitter on Friday, I was so angry at Bush & Co. The 1994 Agreed Framework mostly froze North Korea’s nuclear weapons program and kept North Korea in the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. In the early 2000s, intelligence reports, which turned out to be correct, indicated that North Korea was building a clandestine uranium enrichment facility. In response, Bush terminated the Agreed Framework. In response to that, North Korea withdrew from the NPT and went ahead on building nuclear weapons and missiles.
Tom Levenson
Is the basic strategic posture towards a nuclear missile armed NK just updated MAD? Can’t see much other option, really, but if so, damn…
Cheryl Rofer
@Gene108:
There was some of this the last time around. I honestly don’t recall a lot of the details of those talks, though. Some of the major players (US, Russia, China, Europe) would be the same as for the Iran talks. Iran tried some of those games, but the P5+1 stuck together to get a pretty good deal. North Korea is much more dangerous at this point than Iran was, and there is experience from the negotiations with Iran, so I think the six parties would stick together.
Cheryl Rofer
@realbtl: Hi there! Good times.
JGabriel
debbie:
I can’t imagine China really wants a nuclear North Korea on its border. NK is potentially just as much a threat to them as anyone else. Any missile from Pyongyang that can reach Tokyo, or even Nagasaki, can reach Beijing just as easily.
Robert Sneddon
@Cheryl Rofer: All of their testing has been underground and there’s a way of messing with outside observers, the “bubblewrap” test where the bomb chamber is much larger than normal and the test device is suspended in or above a large pool of water. This reduces the seismic signature but there’s supposedly a fingerprint in the resulting shockwave pattern that would indicate it was that kind of a shot.
I don’t think any of the Big Five ever fired bubblewrap tests, even to calibrate the results of such a test. Usually they wanted everyone else to know about the test as part of the mutual deterrence process. There’s a reason the best footage of the infamous airdropped Tsarbomba Soviet test was from an American observer aircraft.
Schlemazel
@Cheryl Rofer:
I attended a talk Former President Clinton gave about 10-12 years ago & he was particularly unhappy with the response. He felt it would lead to exactly where we are.
When questioned about what the government of the DPK wants he said 2 things, they want to remain in power unmolested and they want to be “a player” in the region, someone with some authority that must be respected. He made it seem pretty simple from that sense.
Cheryl Rofer
@amk:
If you’re South Korea, it makes a lot of sense. Threaten the Young Leader, for whom survival is paramount. Of course, his response will be to build bunkers, if he hasn’t already. Or maybe a Doomsday Machine, which I think they don’t yet have the resources to do.
For the rest of us, scary and a reason to get to negotiations.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Cheryl Rofer: That photo (and the one on your site) strikes me as strange. They’re obviously inside, but they’re all bundled up in winter coats. They can make a miniature implosion bomb that they can put on a missile but they can’t heat a military research building in winter? And let people in to see it?
I mean, I know they’re starving their people and so forth, but in their parades they always show how modern and well-oiled and fearsome they are. These pictures seem, er, poorly designed to fit that narrative.
It’s not proof either way, of course. It just struck me as strange.
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
chopper
@Cheryl Rofer:
if I were them, I certainly would be working on a smaller more efficient (aka boosted) device for use as a first stage of a thermonuclear bomb. which means I’d be burying the test deep to make sure nobody knows I’m getting that far.
that’s why all these yahoos on the internet talking shit about how low the yield is are way off.
Gene108
@Amir Khalid:
As the actors in the six party talks do not have united goals – Russia, China, S.Korea, Japan, and the USA (I assume N. Korea is the sixth nation) I am not sure if N. Korea has not used it to their advantage.
I hope the countries are united in non-proliferation, but China did supply Pakistan with nuclear technology. So I am skeptical of a united front.
Cheryl Rofer
@Immanentize:
We know frustratingly little about the design of their bombs. It is clear that they are nuclear bombs (“devices” while in testing, to be precise) from their seismic signatures. The smaller yields suggest that they are not successful two-stage hydrogen bombs. There is something called boosting, in which fusionable material is added to a fission bomb and would not be detectable from the small amount of information we have. My own thinking is that they have a design that they are tweaking with each test.
Cheryl Rofer
@Immanentize:
They have some plutonium from a small reactor and a uranium enrichment facility. More upthread.
JGabriel
Poopyman:
Schlemazel:
North Korea isn’t a distraction – in fact, it probaby keeps us more focused on Asia than we otherwise might be – and I think China knows the US State Dept. and US military are quite capable of keeping their eyes on both NK and the South Pacific/South China Sea. (The Middle East is a distraction, though, no argument there.)
China is more likely to see NK as a bargaining chip with the US: Sure, we can help you with maybe getting inspections or a production slowdown in NK, what do we get in return?
SH121
I know many may be upset but in the future I cannot see any way possible but to use nuclear plants for power in order to cut down on carbon and they are going to be used in countries that shall we say are do not love their neighbors let alone anyone else. So far the world has not been any too speedy in enacting political agreements so these power facilities can be kept under observation to make sure they are producing kilowatts not mushroom clouds or dirty bombs. What are scientists recommending to governments, who of course will have to wait until something horrible happens, as political solutions to keep everything in the right hands.? I am thinking a computer program or whatever that can shut down reactors or any plant equipment used with computers that are controlled by an International agency like IAEA with real power that cannot vetoed in the UN?
Amir Khalid
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
Maybe coat racks are considered an effete Western luxury in the DPRK.
Cheryl Rofer
@Tom Levenson:
One of my frustrations is that we haven’t really worked out strategies for today’s nuclear situations. So yes, sorta because we don’t have anything else. It could be argued that negotiations, if we can get to them, are an alternative strategy. But I would like to see a major rethink of nuclear strategy. I heard second-hand from a person who recently attended a conference on nuclear strategy that there’s pretty much no big thinking going on in this area.
And South Korea just weighed in with its own version of MAD.
Immanentize
Thank you so much for the answers — I see a bunch of BJers had the same Qs. Maybe I can get in a different one before the brains do ….
Weaponizing a nuclear device is amazingly difficult. This was a big issue in the Iranian negotiations. Iran said they had no interest in weaponizing nuclear devices, China was happy for decades to have tactical nukes but not long range capabilities, NK has some delivery devices, some not appropriate for these weapons and some untested. We may know nothing but what is the latest guess on their ability to mate weapon and missile and make it explode when desired?
ETA damn spell correct
amk
@Cheryl Rofer: Thanks. What happens if lil kim sheds his mortal remains, natural or otherwise? Will the rest of his we-don’t-know-when-we-will-be-shot ‘cabinet’ still be hellbent of keeping things as they are?
Cheryl Rofer
@Robert Sneddon:
Yep. Jeffrey Lewis (@ArmsControlWonk) and I and a few others were kicking this one around on Twitter yesterday. Our consensus was that this is probably not what they’re doing. I have been told by a former test director that it is entirely possible with they way their test site is set up that they could reuse the chambers resulting from previous tests.
They already mess with us because we don’t know the geology of their test site.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@JGabriel: I’m no expert on this stuff, but the conventional-wisdom reporting I’ve seen is that China “will not accept” NK falling because that means SK would have control of the peninsula and given the US’s strong defense posture with SK, that means US troops on the Chinese border. It’s a string of if-thens that I don’t see as being the obvious outcome.
The US has good relations with Vietnam (and is apparently talking about using Vietnamese ports again). The US has increasingly good relations with Myanman/Burma. Obama was just in Laos. China may not like these things, but they’re not trying to veto them.
The US wants a denuclearized Korea – on both sides. The US security posture in the South would be at a much, much lower level if the North weren’t so belligerent. Given SK’s history under dictatorship, it’s hard for me to see the people there wanting to have more military forces on their soil than necessary, or wanting to poke the Chinese bear.
But we’ll see.
Cheers,
Scott.
Cheryl Rofer
@Schlemazel:
Yep.
Amir Khalid
@Poopyman:
It’s my suspicion that China has always seen North Korea as a problem child.
Cheryl Rofer
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
Big buildings with missiles and stuff in them are often poorly heated in many countries. I wouldn’t make a lot of this, although I found the photos strange too.
What I found more strange was that they had what they claimed to be a nuclear device not surrounded by sandbags and foam to prevent the consequences of dropping it. A number of us believe it’s a model rather than the real thing.
amk
@Amir Khalid: Or the boogieman for the west.
Shell
Oooh, looks like another Hillary health scare story! At the 9/11 ceremony it seems she tripped or something and lost a shoe, so sites like RedState are already abuzz.
Amir Khalid
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
If China can secure what it considers enough leverage over ASEAN, and it’s certainly trying right now, it will probably work to change that
JGabriel
@Cheryl Rofer:
This is one of the things that just amazes and baffles me. Seoul is only 20 miles from the NK border, maybe 120 miles from Pyonyang. What makes NK think they’ll avoid the nuclear fallout if they set off an atomic bomb so close to their own home? It’s just ridiculous. Someone ought to sit Kim Jong-Un down to watch a few of those post-war Japanese documentaries on the effects of the bombs that went off over Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
JPL
@Amir Khalid: The leader of North Korea does act childlike, and needs to be treated as such, for his bad behavior.
Just to add more unease to the situation, Hillary Clinton left the ceremony today, because she felt ill. NBC said two sources said she fainted getting into her van.
Immanentize
@Cheryl Rofer: I heard a guy who has been at State and DOD alternately for some time suggest that the US could take an international anti-first strike position that is — any state, friend or foe, who launches a first strike nuclear attack will be met by equal US nuclear retaliation. The speaker thought it would be a good addendum to our currently considered no first use policy but also agreed we probably would never make that pledge because of Israel.
Cheryl Rofer
@SH121:
We actually have some pretty good ways to keep nuclear power peaceful. Civilian nuclear reactors are not well-suited in a number of ways to provide nuclear weapons material. The only countries that haven’t ratified the NPT are Pakistan, India and Israel; North Korea withdrew. Even the three non-ratifiers allow some IAEA inspection, although not as much as the rest of us would like.
There are not a lot of motivations for the rest of the world to make nuclear weapons, which is a nice testimony to the power of treaties and international agreements. I think that without the NPT we would be looking at a very different world.
I also think that the dirty bomb threat is much overhyped. Not nonexistent, but getting less all the time as hospitals go to accelerators rather than isotopic sources. Getting the materials from nuclear reactors is practically impossible unless you have full control of all the hoists and other mechanisms of the plant, and then there’s the risk of irradiating yourself. I’ve written much, much more about this at Nuclear Diner.
JPL
@Cheryl Rofer: Thank you for the comment and the link.
Cheryl Rofer
@Immanentize:
North Korea has recently tested some new-looking missiles. The Arms Control Wonk blog has a number of posts on the subject, and I suspect we’ll be seeing more. But, as you say, putting it all together is complicated. North Korea should be able to do that, but unless they do a full-up test, we have no way of knowing how successful they are. And by full-up test, I’m talking about a missile launch and nuclear detonation in, say, the Sea of Japan.
No. Just no.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@JPL:
Not to pick on you, but this way of thinking seems counter-productive to me in dealing with NK. There’s been a cult of personality built up around the Kims for decades. The leadership controls all the media, the educational system, etc.
“Where you stand depends on where you sit.”
Someone who grew up in an environment like that thinks differently, and has different motivations and no-go lines, than someone brought up in the US. We shouldn’t assume that the kinds of carrots and sticks that work with, say, the UK, will work with NK. It’s a mantra that Eastern societies are very concerned about “saving face” as well – much more so than in the West, also too.
We want a peaceful, non-nuclear, relatively prosperous, Korean peninsula. The details of how we get there don’t matter quite as much as the goal. That is, what’s “obvious” about how to deal with a recalcitrant county shouldn’t box us in on to how to deal with Kim because their thought processes may be so different.
People are what they are, independent of the categories we want to put them in.
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: (sigh) Link fail again.
Sorry about that. If I try to edit it, it will be thrown in moderation. I hope it’s not too annoying.
Cheers,
Scott.
(“My kingdom for a proper preview function and a bullet-proof editor!”)
The Dangerman
Fine thread; I’m still on my first cup of coffee this Sunday so pardon if this is too off topic.
Ms. (Dr.?) Rofer, thanks for taking the time here; do you have any thoughts about the closure of Diablo Canyon? This is very close to my home and I’ve visited the plant (the coastline there is spectacular). Could you guesstimate the timeframe to when that area might be able to be converted to some commercial use (or is that even possible given the storage issue?). Is it possible the plant could be converted to a desalination facility since much of the infrastructure for such a project is already there?
ETA: I should add that, from my visit, I saw the massive discharge of water used; I assume that it’s all very clean.
Cheryl Rofer
@JGabriel:
Sigh. Yeah.
Harold Agnew, the third director of Los Alamos, liked to say during the Cold War that national leaders should be brought together every decade or so to see an atmospheric test so they could understand just how enormously destructive nuclear weapons are. He had vivid stories of his own experiences.
But having nuclear weapons seems to override all that for some leaders.
Immanentize
@Cheryl Rofer: I know — no, just no.
But they seem like the kind of jerks to try it. Kim Jung-Trump
ETA I agree with Clinton’s (and your) characterization of the NK motivations. But a small nuclear test into the Sea of Japan might calculate out for Kim Jong-un as being in the country’s best interests? Or at least a credible threat to do so?
Cheryl Rofer
@Immanentize:
Another topic I’d like to spend more time on. There is quite a bit of talk right now about Obama changing some of the US’s nuclear use policies before he leaves office. With Vladimir Putin showing off his military might and The Young Leader brandishing his nukes, I think there probably will be no change, or a very small one.
Gindy51
@JPL: She got over heated at the ceremony standing in that humid air in a huge crowd for 90 minutes.
http://www.bbc.com/news/election-us-2016-37332106
Cheryl Rofer
@The Dangerman: Let’s save that one for a future AMA on civilian nuclear power and climate change. There’s been so much going on lately that I am not as up to date on that as I’d like to be.
Amir Khalid
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
The Kims are a thing unto themselves: the only Communist royal family.
The Dangerman
@Cheryl Rofer:
Awesome; I promise to hit Starbucks (quad shot incoming!) earlier next time!
Cheryl Rofer
Looks like things are slowing down. Thanks for all the good questions! It’s been fun!
I read BJ through Feedly, but check in on posts that seem to be of interest, including the regular reports on Walter and other critters as well as sciency ones. I comment where it seems helpful.
And I’m on Twitter most days (@CherylRofer) and you can always check out Nuclear Diner!
David Fud
@Cheryl Rofer: This please. I want in particular to learn if the thorium based nuclear designs that China seems to have decided to do some work with are viable or preferable to 1) solid reactor fuels where most of the fuels are not used and leave behind something of a long term mess, and 2) other types of next generation nuclear reactors. Pretty please?
Amir Khalid
@JPL:
Guardian story doesn’t mention Hilary fainting. It does say she went to Chelsea’s apartment to rest up and is now okay.
D58826
@Hunter Gathers: Well if ‘old little hands’ love the way Putin runs russia, he will be over the moon with the N. Korean government.
Immanentize
@Cheryl Rofer: Mille Grazie!!
Please come back again soon! And thank you for the great links including Nuclear Diner!
Villago Delenda Est
@JGabriel: One theory is that the NKs won’t lob a nuke at Seoul; they’ll lob a nuke at the hated Japanese. When I was stationed in Korea (1987-88) bad feelings toward Japan were still very evident, and I’m sure that’s true in the North as well.
JPL
@Amir Khalid: She just left Chelsea’s apartment. Taegan Goddard of political wire is probably not a good source.. (understatement) link
https://twitter.com/politicalwire
debbie
@JPL:
Oh boy. Karl Rove’s going to need another whiteboard.
JGabriel
Shell:
Amir Khalid:
JPL:
So basically, the headline is:
Is that about right?
Epicurus
So, let’s speculate a bit. The DPRK actually uses a nuclear weapon against the U.S. or Japan. How long before Pyongyang is a sheet of molten glass? Can Kim be that insane? I shudder to contemplate this eventuality, but I think it’s all kabuki theater. At least, I hope so!
JPL
@JGabriel: Yes..
Thank you Cheryl for spending your time with us.
Chris
@Cheryl Rofer:
As I recall, the problem with that is that while it worked in the nineties, the Bush administration basically discontinued the entire American side of the agreement as soon as it came into office (after which the NorKors had no more reason not to go for their own bomb, which indeed they got shortly thereafter).
This was on my mind throughout the Iran nuclear negotiations; it’s a real problem when it comes to making those sorts of deals that our word is pretty much demonstrably worthless. No matter what we agreed to, it’s basically up for debate again as soon as a Republican comes back into the White House. Combine North Korea’s nuclear experience with the invasion of Iraq and the conclusion of “fuck America’s word: only nukes can keep you safe” is really hard to escape.
Aleta
@Cheryl Rofer: Hi, and thanks. I was at LA for one summer. (Between undergrad and grad, hired by John C. Browne when he was doing research. I was of no use at all, but am forever grateful to him and still love the place.) Testing was still going on, that summer a tunnel test.
My question: do you think NK’s advances will affect the direction of US spending on actual weapons research (as opposed to research on detection and monitoring)? And Is there any reason for concern that a US administration under someone like Trump or a neocon would itself return to some form of testing, beyond computer models, using NK acquisition as a reason? (The question seems far fetched to me, but so has this election season.)
JGabriel
Cheryl Rofer:
Thanks setting up a dedicated visit and answering our questions, Cheryl!
Chris
@Schlemazel:
More than that;
1) China is the only country that can make North Korea see reason.
2) Therefore, any country that wants North Korea to see reason will have to pass through China.
3) Therefore, what incentive do they have for calming down North Korea in any permanent way? It’s in their interest for the West, Japan and South Korea to have to come to them again and again.
Cheryl Rofer
@David Fud:
Another good question for a nuclear power and climate change AMA.
Very quickly, It’s good that China and others are looking into those alternatives. We gave them up rather stupidly in the late 1960s. Thorium and molten salt reactors are not the cure-all that some of their proponents claim. But we need to see what might be done with them.
Cheryl Rofer
@Chris: Hard to disagree.
Peter
Given that Pyongyang has to know that any sort of nuclear attack would result in the world powers burning them to the ground and salting the earth, it seems to me that the biggest thing to be concerned about with these tests is the possibility of the tests being botched and killing or irradiating tens of thousands of North Koreans in the process. Am I nuts?
Cheryl Rofer
@Aleta:
Glad you enjoyed your time at Los Alamos! And you probably contributed more than you think.
Nuclear weapons spending right now is a mess. The armed services want to completely renew all their nuke stuff, and the labs really need some new buildings. But how many nukes do we need? The answer to that would indicate how much to spend. I don’t see the North Korean test making much of a difference in that.
I went to a talk about six months ago by John Hopkins, who was director of testing at Los Alamos. I wrote it up here. He estimates it would take between half a billion and a billion dollars to restart testing. And it’s likely that the Nevada Test Site could not be used because of population increase around Las Vegas.
But what Donald Trump might do? I thought that George Bush would never withdraw from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. He did. So Trump might just want to pop one off for fun. Nuclear is the ultimate! Wheee!
Elie
I have sensed that North Korea is essentially a junk yard dog for China, who can use it as a threat to all or parts of the west while seeming like they as appalled as everyone else. It suits their needs — a viable threat but no one can accuse them directly of aggressive or war like acts. They can point their snarling dog and give it clandestine support that no one can prove exactly. Pretty slick. Also, impossible to negotiate a different reality because all the incentives are lined up in China’s favor on this.
Elie
@Peter:
Don’t you think that China is not helping them? Of course, under the table… They are a harassment to the west — a veiled threat — particularly to Japan — that suits China just fine.
Peter
@Elie: Of course they’re helping them (at least enough to keep the regime propped up; I think they’ve even managed to alienate China at this point, but the North Korean government falling would result in millions of refugees pouring over the border into China, and they don’t want to deal with that), but it’s still the North Korean government at the head, and North Korea doesn’t exactly have a Bikini Atoll to test on.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Epicurus:
I would hope that we would be able to tailor our retaliation between nothing and molten glass endpoints.
As others have pointed out above, millions in SK are very close to the border. Fallout has ways of traveling thousands of miles. and doesn’t respect political borders.
Pyongyang could be bombed to rubble even without nuclear weapons, tough not as quickly, of course.
Maybe there would be pressure to respond with a nuclear strike as an example for the future, but I would hope that there would be recognition that we don’t need to kill millions to get rid of the NK regime -if that decision has to be made.
I’m no expert, but I assume if there were plans for a nuclear attack by NK there would be a few days warning (the preparations are hard to hide). There would be tremendous pressure in Japan and SK to “nip it in the bud”, so if a decision were made to take pre-emptive action, I would assume it would involve conventional weapons (so as not to cross the “first-use” line, to leave options open, to reduce exposure to civilians and an (probable) eventual occupation force, etc.).
“Molten glass” is a nice talking point, but if that is really our only planned option for NK’s small nuclear force, then we really are in a dangerous predicament.
An attack against the US mainland (as opposed to some uninhabited Alaskan island) stikes me as fantasy, no matter NK’s cartoons and movies (nor GOP fear-mongering) about it. They wouldn’t risk it without them having the feeling of a high probability of the missiles and warheads actually working, and they’re very far from that state. And what would it get them? Some glorious “victory” for about 30 minutes before they’re bombed, shelled, invaded, and thrown in the sea? (China isn’t going to protect them if they attack the US.)
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
Matt McIrvin
@JGabriel: My impression was that it’s common knowledge anyway that, at any time, North Korea could demolish Seoul with an artillery barrage. It would take longer than a nuclear bomb, but the fallout on NK wouldn’t be radioactive.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Matt McIrvin:
That’s one of the reasons that South Korea is moving most of the it’s government infrastructure south of Seoul(traffic in Seoul is another reason).
Bess
@Cheryl Rofer:
New nuclear is incredibly expensive. The cost of electricity from a reactor which started construction today would likely range from 15 cents/kWh to over 20 cents/kWh. The retail piece of electricity in the US is about 12 cents/kWh. Adding a lot of nuclear to our grid mix would drive our electricity prices through the roof and likely damage our economy.
New onshore wind is now under 4 cents. New utility PV solar is now about 6 cents. Both unsubsidized prices. Both likely to be less than 3 cents/kWh before a new reactor could be built. Wind is already our least expensive way to bring new generation to the grid. Solar is dropping into second place, passing natural gas.
Think about the problem of making even 15 cent nuclear competitive with 3 cent wind and solar. Switching to thorium won’t do it. Thorium is just fuel. The uranium used in nuclear electricity makes up less than 1 cent of the cost of nuclear.
The nuclear industry always has a promising new plan. To date none of those promising new plans have reduced the cost of nuclear energy. It’s been 60 years of unfilled promises of cheap electricity.
Can you dream of a way to build a large “water boiler” and steam turbine and cut the cost 5x from what this sort of stuff now costs?
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Villago Delenda Est: The two Koreas are united in their animosity towards the Japanese, it’s faded a bit as the generation that remember the colonial occupation dies off.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@3am: We have done work with molten sodium reactors here in the US, but that was a long time ago(in the 50’s and was pretty much a failure). Some communities here in Southern CA(there was a test reactor in the Santa Susana hills) are still dealing with the fallout.
Bill Arnold
@Bess:
Word used was baseload
As demand and supply management and forecasting improve and especially as storage technologies improve, less baseload will be required but we do need some. (Just a counterpoint, not arguing with your points really.)
David Fud
@Cheryl Rofer: Thank you for that link. Fascinating history, and it explains to some degree why we would ever stop. Other speculations I have seen had to do with material for nuclear bombs, so it is interesting to see that it was likely more related to the mindset of the administrator. Looking forward to the next Q&A.
Bess
Baseload is a description of a type of electricity generation technology. Baseload is not a need.
The need is to provide electricity in the amount requested at the times requested. There are multiple ways to get that job done.
With the 20th Century grid our most affordable way to generate electricity was to burn coal. (Affordable only because we ignored the external costs of coal burning which makes coal our most expensive method.) Coal plants can’t load follow (to any great extent) so we used hydro and diesel/gas generators to match supply and demand. Sometimes coal plants were turned off at the end of the day when demand dropped and back on in the morning to meet the higher day demand.
Then we start building nuclear. Very hard to turn off and on, it can take days. We ended up with too much electricity late at night and too little during the day. So we built a lot of pump-up hydro storage. At night, when demand was low, we pump water up to a higher reservoir and then let it flow through a turbine at the lower reservoir when we need more electricity.
We use storage and dispatchable generation (largely natural gas) in order to supply our grids from nuclear and coal. That is exactly what we will do as we supply our grids with 100% renewable energy.
We’ll use a combination of wind, solar, hydro, geothermal, tidal, biogas, biomass, and possibly wave. A combination of inputs and large “harvest areas” greatly reduces the hourly and daily variability we get with wind and solar. Batteries are becoming cheap enough to handle short term storage. Pump-up hydro is currently our best technology for long term storage. Add in biogas and biomass plants which can be fired up for longer periods of low wind and solar input.
We’re in the transition from a grid based on fossil fuels with some nuclear mixed in to a grid based on renewable energy, mainly wind and solar. How to make it work is no longer a question. We’re heading toward clean, low carbon electricity and cheaper electricity than we’ve had in the past.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Bill Arnold: That assumes that centralized powerplants are going to continue to be the way to go, doesn’t it? E.g., if modern homes can generate their own electricity via solar cells (during the day) and fuel cells (at night, etc.), then the need for big-honking nuclear plants would seem to be less obvious.
In addition to all the things pointed out by Bess, there’s still the issue of what to do with the radioactive waste (even in the “magical” thorium-based reactors) and how to decommission plants that have outlived their useful lives.
Lots of things become possible if one has a smart grid with enough geographical extent (e.g. take power from South America when North America is in winter; take power from Eastern Russia when it’s night in Europe; etc.). That would seem to be a more productive path, IMO.
FWIW.
Cheers,
Scott.
Cermet
@Bess: Possible – the Candu is a far safer reactor (requires less expensive backup systems) than our military based design. It is the only design I have read that has a full computer control system (lower man power cost) and unlike our plants, can run while fuel is exchanged! Never be cheaper than wind but does handle 24/7 and the Candu has a far better on-line performance than our reactors. Has issues, too but it is extremely low carbon footprint and using natural uranium (and heavy water) makes it a good source for tritium – a possible fusion fuel (if that manages to ever work.)
3am
Belated thank you for your answers, Cheryl! I’ll keep my eyes open for future posts here, and follow you on your site.
David Fud
@Bess:
If you listen to the thorium proponents, the answer to your question is yes. The reasons they claim are 1) the pressure is reduced greatly, down to atmospheric levels, making the equipment much less expensive, and 2) the fuel is more or less fully used with valuable byproducts that can be sold at a sizable margin, and 3) Thorium is much more plentiful than Uranium. Another benefit is massively less safety issues because 1) there is no waste to speak of, and 2) the pressures and meltdowns are not an issue. Keep in mind this is me trying to articulate arguments I have seen elsewhere, I am not an expert, though if these things are true it seems like an exciting possibility to me.
Whether these are actually true, and whether there are no other horrific side effects is for Cheryl Rofer or some other expert to answer, but to listen to the Thorium proponents, it is pretty clear that yes, the plants could be made for a much lower price without many of the side effects of today’s reactors. Obviously, I would love to know the truth of this, and wonder why we haven’t pursued it if these technologies are so much better.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@?BillinGlendaleCA: We Almost Lost Detroit – a book about the Fermi liquid-metal fast breeder reactor accident outside Detroit.
Neat technology, but scary stuff when (not if) things go wrong.
(The liquid metal is liquid sodium which catches fire and explodes in contact with water, etc., etc.)
Cheers,
Scott.
Bess
@Bill Arnold:
I’ve been off the grid for over 25 years. I run a mini-mini grid. I supply all the electricity I want and need with no “baseload” generation. I’ve got no coal or nuclear plants.
I use a mix of solar (PV panels), storage (batteries), and dispatchable generation (gas generator). My electricity has been 100% reliable for all 25 years except for less than one hour when I had a component failure. (Meter shunt, jumped around it until I got a replacement.) My grid isn’t 100% clean/renewable but it could be if I had access to some wind or hydro. Or biofuel for a generator.
A grid of any size can be run the same way. It’s just a matter of assessing the resources in a region and determining the best mix of generation and storage.
Bess
@Cermet:
I didn’t bring up either safety or the significant problem of radioactive waste. Nuclear fails on cost alone.
Bess
@David Fud:
If these economic advantages for thorium are real, and significant, then why is China continuing to build uranium based reactors? Thorium reactor designs are not new, the US built one in 1965.
Cermet
@Bess: Agreed about cost but fail? Not necessarily when one considers AGW cost’s which make nuclear far cheaper than current coal & gas systems; as for wind and solar, not ever going to supply enough for mega watts 24/7 so not a lot of choice here. As for fission waste, not needed to store forever like they say or even a thousand years – fusion will be achieved some day (when I will not even hazard a guess but certainly within a hundred years) but fusion can easily convert super hot nuclear waste into very low level waste that isn’t an issue. Not that such a process would be anything but expensive but it is doable.
patrick II
I don’t know if this makes any sense, but I would publicy threaten to give South Korea as many or more atomic missles than North Korea has. I don’t think that would give the crazy man in North Korea pause, but it might give the Chinese pause, and maybe they will actually do something about their neighbors to the south.
Phoebes
Hi Cheryl, it’s Jill from RENESAN in Santa Fe! Great seeing you.
Bill Arnold
@Bess:
Very good to hear, thanks.
The story I hear from somebody involved in next gen grid management is that grids are not ready to go with even already spinning (idling) gas generators as reserve capacity, that they still want something they can count on, e.g. hydro or some sort of thermal plant (nuclear or fossil fuel). I’ll add nuclear never spooked me as much as it does some people (lived 10 miles east of a nuclear plant for decades FWIW), and GHG-caused climate change is a lot scarier to me than nuclear power. (Mainly CO2; methane oxidizes out in 10 years or so.)
At any rate, the advances being made in both variable supply [1] (solar/wind), storage (just starting to get interesting) and management of supply/demand are all pretty rapid and exciting, if somewhat late. To me though, it’s all about climate change, mainly about whatever can be done to keep as much fossil carbon in the ground as possible. And controlling methane emissions under our control, including leakage (production and distribution) and agriculture (both rice and livestock) and landfills and maybe other sources.
[1] Management people are modeling rooftop solar as demand I am told, FWIW. That’s just a modeling convenience though.
Bess
@Cermet:
Yes, it would be cheaper to build hundreds of reactors than to deal with climate change. But moving to renewables would even cheaper.
To say that there’s no way to supply our energy needs with wind and solar defies reality. We have vastly more renewable resources than we can possibly use. Far, far in excess of uranium, coal, oil and natural gas combined.
costofsolar.com/management/uploads/2013/07/solar-energy-potential.png
(I haven’t figured out the magic trick with links needed on this site. Past the above in your browser.)
We can’t get fossil fuels off our grids and highways using something yet to be invented. We must use the best of what is available now. As technology advances we can change directions if a better solution is found.
I’m not going to get involved in a safety/waste discussion. Nuclear fails on economic basis. Not having to worry about possible meltdowns or additional radioactive waste is a freeby.
Bess
@Bill Arnold:
Grids currently backup large thermal plants (nuclear and coal) by having many/all generators run at less 100% full output, with hydro (turbines turning but not under load), gas plants spinning but not producing much, and storage (mostly pump-up hydro). Coal and nuclear plants go offline with no advance warning much more often than most people realize. The grid must react very quickly in order to keep the lights on. Even a short big drop in supply can trip reactors off and then the grid can cascade to black.
Wind and solar, however, are very different. A day or two ahead of time grid operators are aware of how much wind and solar to expect and for how long. With solar at full output for five hours or wind at full output for a few days the backup generation can be turned off.
It’s cheaper to integrate wind and solar onto a grid than to integrate large thermal plants (ERCOT, the Texas grid, has furnished that data).
Edward Marshall
Cheryl, just want to say I love your work and I follow you at nuclear diner, and your commenting on Arms Control Wonk blog. As a fellow nuclear nerd, I think you are a rock star.
3am
@Bess:
Cheryl was replying to me in the response you cited, so hopefully you don’t see this as butting in, but cost is not a factor in thinking about base load requirements. Right now that’s coal, hydro, gas turbine, or nuclear. Storage for excess isn’t there yet, and you’ll find the costs there beyond the basic wind/solar PV/etc generation.
Tacit to my thinking, at least, is that we have hit a point in climate change where a gradual transition will not be possible and we will be facing a global emergency. Nuclear would be in incremental improvement in base load CO2 emission for a lot (most?) of the world.
3am
@Bess:
How does your being off grid translate for an apartment dweller in a typical urban environment and typical climate? I also personally have done my part (solar) and know how much we can do with lifestyle. But if we’re talking 10 years … a multistrategy approach is wise. All renewables is inevitable if we last 1000 more years as a species.
3am
@Bess:
Sorry for comment flurry, but please consider if we were to fully externalize the costs of CO2 emission (you may fairly bring up the long term fully externalized cost of waste storage and management in nuclear, but short term I feel it’s much higher for fossil fuels).
Bess
@3am:
Felt to me as if Cheryl’s discussion was winding down. Seems like a good place to talk about the other kind of nuclear and whether we really need to build any more.
Pump-up hydro runs 5 cents/kWh to 10 cents/kWh.
Imagine a mix of 30% 3c wind, 30% 3c solar and 20% 13 cent stored wind/solar. (Using the high price for storage and assuming 10% from hydro, geothermal, etc.) That works out to 4.4 cents per kWh. (0.3 *3) + (0.3 * 3) + (0.2 * 13) = 4.4
Using today’s unsubsidized prices for wind (4c) and solar (6c) and 10 cents for storage the mix prices out at 6.4c
Those numbers are a small fraction of price of new nuclear (15 to 20+ cents/kWh). Even before we add in the cost of storage and backup for nuclear.
I totally agree that we need to act rapidly. And that’s another reason for avoiding nuclear. Reactors take a long time to plan and construct. Very large wind farms are built in less than two years. Large solar farms are built in less than one year.
In 2012 the US installed 13,082 megawatts of wind capacity. Allowing for a capacity factor of 40% that works out to about 5 gigawatts of realized capacity. Roughly equivalent of 5 nuclear reactors. That’s something we can do right now. Year after year.
Solar and wind require basic construction skills that are commonly found in every region of every state. Wind farm technicians take only a few months to train in community colleges (sometimes they are hired after two months and then finish their training on the job).
Nuclear requires specialized training. Were we to embark on a large scale nuclear construction project it would take years to educate the engineers needed and to give them enough experience for them to function independently.
Bess
@3am:
I was just describing my mini-mini grid as a model for how a very large renewable energy grid would work. In general it does not make sense to go off the grid, in my case connecting to the grid would have cost $300,000. I’m special…. ;o)
What I was describing is that sunshine charges my batteries and when there isn’t enough sunshine I use dispatchable power.
If you live in an apartment and want to do something personally to help push the transition off fossil fuels there are a number of steps you might take.
1) Get more efficient. It’s easier to not need a kWh of coal than to build RE to replace it. Every bulb that you use more than ‘two minutes a month’ should be an LED. Then as those other bulbs burn out replace then with LEDs.
Do all the common sense stuff – turn off lights and TVs you aren’t using. Buy power efficient stuff when you buy stuff. Weatherstrip, even if you’re only a renter.
2) If you can, purchase your electricity from a ‘green’ provider. In some utility districts people have the option to buy from a company that sells only RE electricity.
3) Buy into a community solar project. For people who don’t own their roof there are projects springing up where locals pool their money and install a lot of panels on a piece of land, then get credit for the output on their utility bills.
4) Save up for an EV. Next year GM and Tesla will start selling 200+ mile range EVs for about $35k. Out of pocket costs for a $35k EV are about the same as for a $28k ICEV during loan payoff and cheaper after. If you are thinking about buying a tarted up Camry then you could buy a Tesla 3 and tell the oil industry to kiss off.
(100% financing at 4.5% with a 6 year payoff. 13,000 miles per year. 12c/kWh electricity and $3/gallon fuel.)
If you can deal with the shorter range used Nissan Leafs can be incredibly great buys. They’re coming off lease after three years and the used car market hasn’t understood how much money one saves commuting with electricity.
—
I already covered this, but just quickly – we can’t build nuclear rapidly. It can easily take a decade or more to plan and complete a new reactor. Building ‘some of each’ would just be a distraction. Better to spend the money on renewables and complete the job much, much faster.
Bess
@3am:
I totally agree. The cost of climate change is extremely higher than the cost of replacing fossil fuels with nuclear reactors. Add in all the cost of storage, decommissioning, even a few Fukushimas and we’d still be far ahead financially than if we have to rebuild our coastal cities on higher ground and our populations closer to the poles.
But it’s not a binary choice. There’s third choice which would cost far less, create no radioactive waste, neven experience a meltdown, and could be implemented decades sooner.