The DPRK Energy Sector: Current Status and Future Engagement Options
This report discusses the history, current status, and potential future of the DPRK energy sector. The authors, drawing on the Nautilus Institute's decades of work on North Korea, describes the history of the DPRK energy sector, in particular changes in the sector since 1990. The study then looks at the current status and supply and demand balance of North Korea's energy sector noting the vulnerabilities and critical needs of that sector. The report also explores options for the rehabilitation of the DPRK energy sector that could be used in negotiations with North Korea as part of a 'roadmap' to denuclearization and legitimate energy needs if negotiations are not successful and the DPRK either collapses (due to an internal coup, succession crisis, or war) or continues to stagnate. The report concludes by identifying the robust strategies that are important in both engagement and non-engagement (collapse or stagnation) scenarios.
Introduction: Energy and Mineral Resources in North Korean Security and Sustainability
Addressing the DPRK nuclear weapons issue requires that the DPRK rebuild its economy in peaceful ways that avoid illicit or sanctioned activities. Two major components of this economic transformation are the state’s mineral sector and energy sector, which must have the infrastructure to support economic growth. Accurately assessing the DPRK energy and mineral sectors is challenging, given the significant amount of inaccurate data on the subject. However, unless such policy-relevant data and analysis can be generated, it is impossible for decisionmakers to determine how to engage the DPRK in a meaningful way. From a DPRK perspective, such analysis is equally critical because it is evident that substantial rehabilitation of the energy sector and development of the mineral sector is impossible without external assistance. The following papers contained in this special edition of the KJDA outline the status of the energy and mineral sectors and paint a bleak picture of North Korea: a decaying energy infrastructure, mines lacking adequate supplies and fuel, and a crippled energy sector unable to support commercial development that now functions at a fraction of its output 20 years ago. However, three options for engaging the DPRK are available: 1) Cooperative energy efficiency projects in the DPRK. 2) Working with the DPRK to ensure that the pilot light water reactor at Yongbyon complies with proper design and construction standards. 3) Assisting the DPRK with minerals-sector development, including providing markets for the minerals produced.
Numerical tools applied to power reactor noise analysis
In order to be able to calculate the space- and frequency-dependent neutron noise in real inhomogeneous systems in two-group theory, a code was developed for the calculation of the Green's function (dynamic transfer function) of such systems. This paper reports on the development as well as the test and application of the numerical tools employed. The code that was developed yields the space-dependence of the fluctuations of the neutron flux induced by fluctuating properties of the medium in the two-group diffusion approximation and in a two-dimensional representation of heterogeneous systems, for both critical systems and non-critical systems with an external source. Some applications of these tools to power reactor noise analysis are then described, including the unfolding of the parameters of the noise source from the induced neutron noise, measured at a few discrete locations throughout the core. Other concrete applications concern the study of the space-dependence of the Decay Ratio in Boiling Water Reactors, the noise-based estimation of the Moderator Temperature Coefficient of reactivity in Pressurized Water Reactors, the modeling of the beam- and shell-mode core-barrel vibrations in Pressurized Water Reactors, and the investigation of the validity of the point-kinetic approximation in subcritical systems driven by an external source. In most of these applications, calculations performed using the code are compared with at-power plant measurements. Power reactor noise analysis applications of the above type, i.e. core monitoring without disturbing plant operation, is of particular interest in the framework of the extensive program of power uprates worldwide.