North Korea claimed on Wednesday that its scientists succeeded in creating a nuclear fusion reaction, but experts doubted the isolated communist country actually had made the breakthrough in the elusive clean-energy technology.
Fusion nuclear reactions produce little radioactive waste — unlike fission, which powers conventional nuclear power reactors — and some hope it could one day provide a virtually limitless supply of clean energy. US and other scientists have been experimenting with fusion for decades, but it has yet to be developed into a viable energy alternative.
North Korea’s main newspaper, however, reported that its own scientists achieved the feat on the occasion of the “Day of the Sun” — a North Korean holiday marking the birthday of the country’s late dynastic founder, Kim Il Sung, in April. Often, North Korea’s vast propaganda apparatus uses the occasions of holidays honouring Kim or his son, current leader Mr Kim Jong Il, to make claims of great achievements that are rarely substantiated. North Korean scientists “solved a great many scientific and technological problems entirely by their own efforts ... thus succeeding in nuclear fusion reaction at last,” the Rodong Sinmun newspaper said. Experts, however, doubted the North’s claim.
“Nuclear fusion reaction is not something that can be done so simple. It’s very difficult,” said Hyeon Park, a physics professor in South Korea.