By Kim Tae-gyu
Staff Reporter


A small amount of liquid uranium that sneaked into Korea last June caught the nation by storm but it proved to be a storm in a teacup as its quality is lower than even that of natural uranium.

Rev. Kim Suk-joon from the main opposition Grand National Party revealed on Monday 10 grams of liquid uranium was found by the Pusan police in June, raising concerns about the nation’s security.

Some media went even further, presenting the possibility that bombs could be made with the uranium and terrorists were using Korea as a stop-over before smuggling the dangerous materials to rogue nations.

According to the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI), however, the enrichment level of the uranium is just 0.7 percent, far short of the 90 percent level which is needed to make atomic bombs.

``It doesn’t make any sense to talk about weapons with this. Only 46 percent of the liquid was uranium with the enrichment level of 0.7 percent. It was coarse with many impurities,’’ KAERI president Chang In-soon said.

The KAERI conducted laboratory tests with the liquid uranium after the Pusan police received the material in June and sent it on to the state-owned KAERI for analysis.

Uranium found in nature consists largely of two isotopes; U-235 and U-238. The former is a highly fissionable ingredient, which plays a key role in creating great amounts of energy when its atom splits.

But, the natural uranium contains about 0.7 percent of U-235 and the remaining 99.3 percent is mostly U-238, which does not directly contribute to the fission process.

So scientists separate the two isotopes and increase or enrich the proportion of U-235 to 4-5 percent for nuclear reactors and to more than 90 percent for weapons.

The Ministry of Science and Technology joined in efforts to snuff out claims that the liquid is related to terrorists, who try to build up weapons through the material.

``The liquid uranium is actually nothing. You can touch it with your hands and we don’t plan on reporting this material even to the International Atomic Energy Agency,’’ a MOST official said.

Also the Pusan maritime police confirmed the uranium was not smuggled but delivered to them.

``An ethnic Korean called me in May and said he wanted to send a uranium sample. I said okay and it was delivered by a woman,’’ said police officer Lee Kyung-ryol, who received the material.

voc200@koreatimes.co.kr