isn't it uranium nukular weapons that N. Korea allgedly has? JD
N.K. has opted - if the reports I read are true - to pursue a U-235 fission based design. .d.
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If that's true, then it makes no sense, unless the Chinese sold them old stuff, or the Chinese perfected the enrichment process in some previous era. Here is a picture of what a 35 staged gas centrifuge system looks like in Portsmouth, Ohio:
http://www.ornl.gov/info/ornlreview/v37_1_04/article_04.shtml
The above plant produces fuel grade uranium. It's a small image, but if you look closely you can see a row of neon fixtures hanging under the gangway at the bottom of the assemblies. If that is a measure of the scale of this system, these things are about two or three stories high.
About the only reason to follow the uranium base is if you already have the ore and processing system and don't want to build reactors to produce plutonium or you can buy the finished goods. In these cases about the only application I could see would be `tactical' weapons like artillary shells where the problems with plutonium's release of neutrons requires designs that might not be useful or might be too complicated to build for artillery shells.
Maybe Dwayne or somebody else who has followed this stuff for awhile can research a reason to follow a uranium based weapon.
CG