N. Korea Claims It Has Detonated a Hydrogen Bomb

[Renew Deal]

Source: NBC News

North Korea says it has conducted a successful hydrogen bomb test, a surprise announcement after South Korean officials detected an "artificial earthquake" near its northern neighbor's main nuclear test site Wednesday.

The shaking was a strong indication that nuclear-armed Pyongyang had conducted its fourth atomic test. North Korea later said it planned an "important announcement."

A confirmed test would mark another big step toward Pyongyang's goal of building a warhead that can be mounted on a missile capable of reaching the U.S. mainland.

The U.S. Geological Survey measured the magnitude of the seismic activity at 5.1 on its website. An official from the Korea Metrological Administration, South Korea's weather agency, said it believed the earthquake was caused artificially based on their analysis of the seismic waves and that it originated 30 miles north of Kilju, the northeastern area where North Korea's main nuclear test site is located. The country conducted all three previous atomic detonations there.
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Read more: http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/national-international/Earthquake-Detected-in-North-Korea-Not-Clear-if-Nuke-Test-364322041.html

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[Purveyor]

1. Not good. It will be NK that shows the world the true and

Real devastion of nuclear weapons. After that NK is no more.

[trillion]

30. Yep, that's likely where that will go.

[onehandle]

2. Thanks, China. China keeps NK alive to drain our resources. nt

Last edited Wed Jan 6, 2016, 12:45 AM - Edit history (1)

[Fuddnik]

6. I think they got that from Pakistan.

[davidpdx]

7. China has and will continue to prop up North Korea and defend it

They also do quite a bit of trade with North Korea. China wants to maintain the status quo with North Korea in between itself and South Korea. If the government ever fell, there would be mass chaos for years. The UN, South Korea, China, Russia, and the United States would have to step in and seal the borders and help feed people and close all the gulags. I am an optimist that someday "little Kim" will get what he deserves....a bullet in the head.

[jeff47]

19. You mean thanks, Pakistan.

North Korea got it's nuclear technology from Pakistan.

[FailureToCommunicate]

21. More likely Pakistan's A Q Khan

[davidpdx]

3. I think the big news here is that it is a hydrogen bomb

It is interesting there is no news yet how big the blast was. Maybe we will find out in the coming days.

As I said previously, I didn't feel anything here in South Korea. This is the 4th test since I moved here 12 years ago.

[bananas]

10. Yes. nt

[Spitfire of ATJ]

18. You know as well as I do that everything is being blown out of proportion.

[davidpdx]

34. Of course

The truth will come out once they (South Korea and the US) get more information. It's going to take a few days.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

40. I wouldn't call that product "the truth"....

Their last "a bomb" was more of a "d- bomb". I wouldn't be surprised if they packed a cave with conventional explosives.

[davidpdx]

45. Considering the US is going to fly a sniffer drone to collect materials and analyze them

we will know one way or another soon what type of bomb it is

[jimlup]

4. F%&@k

Sorry, this isn't good at all. I suspect that they are at least partially correct. Now I want to know yield numbers. Anybody have any data on the size of the previous 3 seismic events? (For a background N. Korea has tested 3 times in the past 2006, 200? and 2013... Each with a seismic signature.)

[James48]

16. here is the current data

North Korean quake two hours ago was a 5.2 to 5.3 on this record data:

http://quakes.globalincidentmap.com/#

Quick google search says the 2006 test was 4.1-4.2, and the more powerful 2009 test was estimated at 4.5.

So yes, this one appears initially to be more powerful than previous NK tests.

[DustyJoe]

5. customers

I wonder who will be the highest bidder for the Norks first sale. Iran or ISIS ?

[Kelvin Mace]

14. Iran isn't that crazy

and ISIS doesn't have that kind of money or infrastructure.

[trillion]

31. Isis has a whole lot of money. They're army is outfitted as an army now(look at their desert

professional military clothes and weapons - they look like our solidier but with the hijabs) and they're getting serious weapons and vehicles. The Saudi Royal family is their financial backer and that billion dollar weapons deal we just made with them is likely buying weapons from us for ISIS as well as Saudi's invasions and occupations in the mid east.

[Kelvin Mace]

36. Yes, but I don't see a fusion nuke

going for anything less than a billion, which is a LOT of money to move without being noticed. You can be damned sure that NK will be under VERY close scrutiny, as will be anyone dealing with them. Going to be awfully hard to broker such a deal when you have the CIA, NSA, FBI, GSG9, MOSSAD, MI6, GCHQ, ASIS, CSIS, MSS, DGSI, DGSE, BND, DMI, DID, NDB, NSB, MIT, FSB, and the NIS forming a conga line behind anyone getting within a mile of NK officials, agents or scientists.

That said, ANY country that has ANYTHING to do with such a deal, no matter how tangential, is going to be nuked in response.

Building any kind of nuke is not like making homemade fireworks. It takes a LOT of specialized skill, massive amounts of money and specialized equipment. Making a fusion weapon is an order of magnitude worse.

Nukes are the ultimate "Fuck you" weapons, and they will elicit a ten-fold "Fuck you " response. NO country could allow the use of such a weapon against it without responding in kind. Also, ANYONE involved would become an international pariah that would make Hitler look like Mother Theresa by comparison.

[jeff47]

20. Pakistan is the country selling nuclear technology.

They sold the technology to North Korea.

[Duppers]

27. The Saudi's

Iran is fine, thanks.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

41. That's pure Dubya "axis of evil" talk.

[roamer65]

8. Once you achieve nuclear fission, fusion isn't far off.

A hydrogen bomb is basically deuterium oxide (heavy water) and a fission device to achieve the temperature necessary for fusion of deuterium oxide to helium to occur.

So they now have a big bomb that they cannot use, otherwise we turn NK to glass.

[jimlup]

11. yep

hopefully even the insane N. Korean regime is a "rational actor"

[JonathanRackham]

12. Unfortunately they may do it to themselves.

[NNadir]

15. Actually, it's far more sophisticated than that. Most modern hydrogen bombs, utilize...

...lithium deuteride for the fusion stage; none have ever used heavy water, although the "Mike" device, the first ever detonated, utilized tritium and deuterium gas.

That device was the size of a small house and was not suitable for delivery. The Soviets detonated the first deliverable hydrogen bomb.

The role of the fusion portion is to generate fusion neutrons, typically 14 MeV neutrons to fission U-238; the fusion is generally just a booster for uranium fission.

It is non-trivial to make such a device, since the timing is very important. One must have high quality plutonium or highly enriched uranium; a fizzle will not generate enough heat (molecular speed) to overcome coulombic repulsion.

The first Korean nuclear test, was in fact, a fizzle, but these days one can learn a lot about how to make nuclear weapons on the internet or in a good science library. Since they weren't very good at making high quality plutonium, they may have switched to uranium-235 weapons. They're easier to make. The problem is no longer the design, but the materials. I doubt that the North Koreans really have the infrastructure to make a large arsenal of these weapons.

Nevertheless, I have proposed, quite some time, we ban lap tops and Tesla cars to prevent lithium from falling into the hands of North Koreans.

Every Cloud Has A Silver Lining, Even Mushroom Clouds: Cs-137 and Watching the Soil Die.

It's rather unconscionable for the North Koreans, where famines are still known, to be making nuclear weapons, but they're not much of a threat to anything really other than themselves. They're rather like those guys holed up in Oregon. They just a bunch of nothings wanting attention.

[jeff47]

22. Nuclear weapons is how they address the famines.

They can't grow enough food within their borders, and don't have enough exploitable natural resources to have an export economy. So they threaten everyone else until foreign aid shuts the North Koreans up.

Nuclear weapons are yet another negotiating tool to get the money to feed the country.

[philosslayer]

24. Wait... what?

You are proposing that we ban lithium batteries so that the North Koreans can't get their hands on any?

[NNadir]

33. It's what, weakly, in my less than amused and amusing world, passes for wit.

It's a comment on those people who think we need to ban plutonium because it can be used to make nuclear weapons.

I discussed the point elsewhere in some more detail: On Plutonium, Nuclear War, and Nuclear Peace.

I made the point that it is impossible to ban uranium.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

42. Indeed. It's a bench model as wet bombs are not deliverable....

Lithium deuteride is another story.

(We won't talk about the tritium.)

[Warpy]

9. 5.1, right at the surface

so they detonated something.

[Kelvin Mace]

13. And these dipshits are worried about Iran?

[Mnemosyne]

17. The difference, as we all know, is that Iran has oil. nt

[forest444]

23. Yes, indeed. I'm sure more than a few neocons have considered an "Operation Iranian Liberation"

O.I.L.

[Sunlei]

25. What country provides the technology and crafted parts to NK? It was china? caught using...

cargo flight locations to ship to NK about 6 years ago.

[vkkv]

26. Please , PLEASE just bomb Fox News !!

And Bill-O's house..... and Sean's....

kidding.... nudge nudge wink wink.

[Duppers]

28. Kim Jong-Un

"Look at me. Look at me."

His infantile needs are getting quite dangerous.

[Warren DeMontague]

29. That's not good.

Still, I'm dubious. The technical hurdles to create a fusion device are kind of high, as I understand it.

[Hissyspit]

32. @AP: BREAKING: South Korean spy agency tells lawmaker that North Korea may have tested A-bomb, not H

@AP: BREAKING: South Korean spy agency tells lawmaker that North Korea may have tested A-bomb, not H-bomb

m.twitter.com/AP

[pampango]

35. Kim is interested in 'dictator-protection' devices. Atomic weapons do a good job, hydrogen bombs

even better. Other than protecting his hereditary right to rule North Korea, hydrogen bombs do no one any good.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

37. Kim Jong Un's still got a ways to go.

(Okay, I only said that as an excuse to play the music video, which is awesome. Still.)

[harun]

38. At least they do them underground

[Herman4747]

39. Stupid Republicans are already blaming B. Clinton & Obama...

...when it was George W. Bush who called North Korea part of "the axis of evil." When Bush II was President, the UN Nuclear Weapons Inspectors got kicked out of North Korea.
Irresponsible rhetoric has its consequences.

[Xithras]

43. Kim has seen what happened to his compatriots in Libya, Iraq and now Syria

He knows that, in the modern world, the only way for a dictator to remain in power is to drive the pricetag for his ouster beyond anything the free world is willing to pay. Ousting Ghadaffi cost nothing, and the world was glad to see him gone. Ousting Saddam was a hell of a lot more expensive (in both lives and resources), and the world is still unhappy with it. Outsing Assad has turned into a quagmire that the world can't even find a resolution to.

He wants to make sure that his own removal carries a pricetag that will make the world scream for peace. How many millions of lives do we want to sacrifice to oust him?

[EndElectoral]

44. Speaking of Regime Change...