North Korea Claims Nuclear Development for Energy

North Korea's state-run news service KCNA reported today that North Korea has "thousands of centrifuges" to produce uranium used to meet the need for electricity. Siegfried Hecker, a Stanford University scientist, who visited North Korea earlier this month, said he was these centrifuges producing low-enriched uranium and that these claims are true, but that the facility producing the uranium could "be readily converted to produce highly-enriched uranium (HEU) bomb fuel." It sounds like North Korea is telling the truth and this use of nuclear power really is for peaceful purposes, but based on Hecker, this might not be the end of this issue. If the facility really could be easily converted to a bomb fuel plant, then this is obviously a pretty major problem for the world. North Korea is known for being unpredictable and aggressive, so they don't need anything powerful like a dependable source of HEU on their hands.

North Korea says it has thousands of nuclear centrifuges