South Korean Laboratory Burned Uranium

South Korea’s nuclear research institute acknowledged yesterday that it burned 2 kilograms of uranium earlier this year but said that none of the radioactive material escaped, Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, Feb. 18, 2005).

The Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute in May incinerated a box that contained 1.9 kilograms of natural uranium, 0.8 grams of depleted uranium and 0.2 grams of enriched uranium after erroneously labeling the container as industrial waste, the government laboratory announced.

“The uranium was such a small amount that it wasn't to the level that could cause harm to the human body or the environment in the course of the incineration,” one laboratory official said (Agence France-Presse I/Spacewar.com, Aug. 9).

Laboratory workers responsible for losing the uranium samples are expected to be punished, AFP reported today.

“It is inevitable for the government to sternly punish those responsible for the lapse,” said a Science and Technology Ministry official.

The enriched uranium, enriched to 10 percent, was the result of unauthorized experiments in 2000.

The International Atomic Energy Agency inspected the institute in 2004, after officials said that researchers there had enriched uranium and extracted plutonium in minimal amounts in 1982 and 2000, yielding possible nuclear bomb ingredients.

The agency rebuked the Seoul government for producing the weapons-grade nuclear material and subjected the uranium samples to analysis.  However, South Korea did not face possible U.N. Security Council trade sanctions.

South Korean officials said the experiments had been carried out without government approval and were halted (Agence France-Presse II, Aug. 10).

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