IAEA Inspection Team Visits Gongneung-Dong Research Reactor

Of the five inspectors of the second IAEA inspection team that came to Korea on September 19, two people including Saukkonen, the head of the team, inspected the Gongreung-dong research reactors.

This was where the 1982 April and May plutonium extraction experiments were conducted and where two reactors are currently being dismantled. The inspectors are expected to inspect the experimental process, and other signature particles of extracted materials at the nuclear reactors.

The five-member inspection team had investigated until September 22 the whereabouts of 12.5 kg of lost refined uranium out of a total of 150 kg of uranium extracted during the 2000 January and February uranium extraction experiments performed at Daejeon’s Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute. During the experiment, the lost uranium was used as a shielding material against radiation and was stored in a waste material storage facility ever since.

The inspection team also extracted a sample of the 0.08 grams of plutonium stored in a liquid nitric acid solution in the waste material storage facility.

An official at the nuclear research facility announced, “The three inspectors who are in Daejeon will join the rest of the team in Seoul on September 24. On the night of September 22, approximately 60 percent of the total investigation was carried out.”

wolfkim@donga.com