Disbelief greets North Korea's claim of nuclear fusion (Roundup)

May 12, 2010, 13:41 GMT

Seoul - Scepticism surrounded North Korea's claim Wednesday that it had carried out a nuclear fusion reaction

The supposed breakthrough, announced by state media, would be a technical step forward from the nuclear fission reactions that Pyongyang has already tested.

'The successful nuclear fusion marks a great event that demonstrated the rapidly developing cutting-edge science and technology of the DPRK,' the Korean Central News Agency said, referring to North Korea by the acronym of its official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

However, Yang Hyung, a research scientist at the South Korean National Fusion Research Institute in Taejon, said he did not think North Korea had the necessary technology or resources for a fusion reaction.

An official at South Korea's Foreign Ministry called the fusion report 'absurd.' There were not indications that the impoverished country was carrying out an expensive project in this area, he said.

Nuclear fusion, which occurs naturally in stars and takes place when atoms are compressed together, is far more technically demanding than nuclear fission, where they are split apart to release energy. It could potentially lead to the production of more powerful nuclear weapons.

Researchers around the world hope one day to develop a safe, unending energy source through nuclear fusion, but so far, there is no fusion reactor in the world that has produced energy. Instead, more energy is expended to achieve fusion than has been produced.

Research in the area is extremely expensive and complicated, and experts said energy-producing fusion reactions are still decades away.

They also said that North Korea would be unable to carry out such a reaction in secret and, had it succeeded, it would have already caused a sensation.

North Korea, whose nuclear weapons programme is seen as a threat to the region, gave no indication how much energy it had produced or how much material it used for the process, saying only that its claimed breakthrough could be used in 'obtaining safe and environmentally friendly new energy.'

Yang called North Korea's claims an exaggeration.

'I take it that they have developed a small fusion apparatus,' he said, adding that it was possible that an experiment had produced plasma, a mixture of neutral and charged particles, which can be used in fusion research facilities.

The Stalinist, isolated country, which carried out nuclear tests in 2006 and 2009, does not allow independent inspection of its nuclear activities.

Its announcement came amid renewed efforts to persuade North Korea to return to six-nation talks that aim to put an end to its nuclear arms programme.

Pyongyang walked out of the talks - in which China, Japan, Russia, the United States and the two Koreas participate - in April 2009 over UN-imposed sanctions.