Second North Korea Bomb Test. But is it a Dud Too?

A second nuclear bomb test may have been conducted May 25, 2009 in North Korea's North Hamkyeong Province at 9:54 am (Seoul time I suppose) according to the AFP NKorea confirms 'powerful' nuclear test

The first North Korea plutonium bomb tested was considered a dud by those who know their bombs.  The highest Richter ascribed to the Oct 8, 2006 test was M 4.2.  Right now I'm seeing M 4.7 from USGS directly and from the AFP report linked above, so this explosion is more powerful than the first (and  Richter measurements tend to depress the numerical indication of ground shaking), still this is nothing very big.  One source said that the first NK explosion was so small it could have been a dud or a fake (a regular explosion of large amounts of material mixed with radioactive products to make a signature).

Arms Control Wonk reported on the test in the fall of 2006 in "NORK DATA: It was a DUD":

But even at 4.2, the test was probablya dud.

Estimating the yield is tricky business, because it depends on the geology of the test site. The South Koreans called the yield half a kiloton (550 tons), which is more or less—a factor of two—consistent with the relationship for tests in that yield range at the Soviet Shagan test site:

Mb = 4.262 + .973LogW

Where Mb is the magnitude of the body wave, and W is the yield.

3.58-3.7 gives you a couple hundred tons (not kilotons), which is pretty close in this business unless you’re really math positive. The same equation, given the US estimate of 4.2, yields (pun intended) around a kiloton.

A plutonium device should produce a yield in the range of the 20 kilotons, like the one we dropped on Nagasaki. No one has ever dudded their first test of a simple fission device. North Korean nuclear scientists are now officially the worst ever.

I don't see 4.7 being considered that much better than the earlier test. Unless they got some HEU finished, though that is unlikely as our intelligence operatives do not believe in the 2nd NK nuclear program.  The plutonium was created by a reactor first allowed by the Reagan and Bush 41 presidencies.  It was put under IAEA guard after the 1994 Agreed Framework negotiations with the Clinton administration.

After the Bush administration botched later negotiations with NK thanks mostly to John Bolton and lies about a 2nd weapons program, NK threw out the IAEA retrieved the plutonium rods and started making weapons.  Luckily a good plutonium explosion is not an easy achievement and can take many years to accomplish.  While HEU itself is harder to create, it creates a more satifactory explosion with less skill (but cannot be packed into as small a device as Pu) according to what I've read IIRC, and so far there really isn't a sign of a HEU program outside of the imagination of Bushies and those who believed the former administration's talking points. 

Also, negotiations after the 2006 blast led to the nation's Pu being put back under lock and key until after April's missile (or as NK called it a satellite) launch when tensions led to the expulsions once again of nuclear watchdogs and extraction of the fuel. (The NY Times indicates that tensions started rising in December as NK looked towards getting better negotiated results from Obama's team and today's demonstration may have been out of frustration that -- like Netanyahu -- Kim Jong Il has found that President Obama is not a pushover.)

Reuters reports that the S Korean stock market is down after the test and that NK felt it needed to build the second bomb because of sanctions and threats after it's missile test in April of this year.

Bloomberg reports that the money that left the SK won ran to the Yen and the Dollar.  I guess you think what you want to think in cases like this.  Many investors ran for the safest currency.  (Really? The Y&D is it?  I'm glad I don't have enough money to play the market.  It's just too weird right now.)

USGS page on the 'quake'.

A NY Times report has lots of background, but it maintains the second nuclear program fantasy of the right wing.

tags: north korea  plutonium  sanctions  bush administration  nuclear test  missile test  

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