Grain Drying: A Glimpse of Daily Life at Yongbyon

Grain Drying: A Glimpse of Daily Life at Yongbyon

 

A 38 North exclusive with contributions by Nick Hansen, Jeffrey Lewis, Randy Ireson and Michelle Kae

June 7, 2013

 

The Yongbyon Nuclear Scientific Research Center has been North Korea's main nuclear facility since the early 1960s when one of the first American spy satellites spotted construction of a small nuclear research reactor provided to North Korea by the Soviet Union.

 

The "furniture factory" (as it was called by the original Koreans involved in the project) dramatically expanded during the 1980s. By the early 1990s, US intelligence estimated that Yongbyon could produce large amounts of plutonium, a danger that was averted by the 1994 US-North Korea Agreed Framework.

 

The facility fell on hard times. But with the collapse of that arrangement in 2002, Yongbyon has made a comeback with the construction of both the new uranium enrichment facility unveiled in 2010 and an Experimental Light Water Reactor (ELWR) as well as the restart of its old 5 MWe reactor.

 

The secret installation is located just off a narrow, bumpy and hazardous dirt road, two hours by car or 90 miles north of Pyongyang and 10 miles north of the ancient resort city of Yongbyon. For centuries, travelers stopped there on their way to view the fabled Yak Mountain (Yak-san), which is renowned for its lush springtime sea of flowering azaleas.

 

During their first trip to the nuclear site in November 1994, the American delegation visited a nearby ancient temple where some 80,000 pages of Buddhist writings had been preserved since 500 A.D. Their young guide pointed out damaged stone artifacts in the mountain pine grove, while standing next to a sign indicating that the area had been bombed by "American imperialist swine" during the war.

 

The Yongbyon nuclear facility is essentially a small isolated town patterned after Russia's nuclear cities. The facility is roughly 50 square miles; it is heavily guarded and surrounded by anti-aircraft batteries.

 

Within the complex, hundreds if not a few thousand scientists, engineers and nuclear workers along with their families live on site and work in office buildings, nuclear laboratories and other industrial facilities. Other personnel provide support services including growing food.

  

 

Commercial satellite imagery from April and May 2013 shows grain drying on paved surfaces at Yongbyon. This is a common practice in Asia and North Korea. When a crop is harvested it will always have some residual moisture.

 

Depending on weather and the crop characteristics, the harvest can sometimes be delayed until the grain is fairly dry while still on the plant. Moist grain in storage will spoil (ferment, mold or rot). So if the harvest is not dry enough, the extra moisture needs to be removed before it can be stored.

 

In the United States, grain is typically run through a dryer (heated air blown over the grain moving on some kind of conveyor) or initially stored in a ventilated silo that has fans to force ambient air up through the grain which rests on a perforated floor.

 

Since the DPRK lacks these means, grain is air/sun dried on pavement or on flat, pounded dirt, drying areas...Read the full analysis and view satellite imagery.

 

Source: 38north.org

 

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