March special issue: What to do about Taiwan

Yongbyon Nuclear Complex

Siegfried Hecker, a Senior Fellow at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, testifies before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee 21 January, 2004 on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. Hecker, who was a member of an unofficial US delegation that visited the controversial Yongbyon research complex this month, told lawmakers that North Korea can accumulate six Kilograms (13.2 pounds) a year of plutonium that could be used to make a nuclear weapon. "The five megawatt reactor has been re-started, it appears to be operating smoothly, providing heat and electricity, also accumulating approximately six kilograms (13.2 pounds) of plutonium per year in its spent fuel rods." Photo credit: Stephen Jaffe/AFP via Getty Images

An excerpt from “Hinge Points: An Inside Look at North Korea’s Nuclear Program”

By Siegfried S. Hecker, Elliot Serbin | Nuclear Energy, Nuclear Weapons