nuclear-news

Quiet dismantling of USA – North Korea nuclear project

Reactor parts secretly scrappedd, By Charles McMahon, seacoastonline.com, July 17, 2011,PORTSMOUTH — Behind a gated work area in the Pease International Tradeport, a project to dismantle key components of a nuclear reactor belonging to North Korea has been kept quiet over the past month.

Shrouded in secrecy, project officials were mum on what really was taking place at an abandoned warehouse on New Hampshire Avenue.

Until now.

Today the work site is empty. Throughout several weeks in June and July, however, the site was bustling with enough boisterous activity to shake the ground and nearby buildings.

Shipped to the site from a storage unit somewhere in the tradeport, the reactor components were kept in 21 large crates, each weighing tons.

According to Scott Shaw, communications manager for the Nuclear Power Plants division at Westinghouse Electric Co., the project involved the reactor components being scrapped. Shaw said the reactor parts were owned by KEPCO, the Korea Electric Power Corp.

The reactor components were once meant for a North Korean nuclear power initiative called the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization, or KEDO, said Shaw.

The agreement essentially allowed for the U.S. to supply the light-water reactors, in exchange for inspection rights.

The origins of the KEDO project can be traced back to a 1994 agreement between the United States and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, or North Korea…..http://www.seacoastonline.com/articles/20110717-NEWS-107170329

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July 19, 2011 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | North Korea, politics international