The New York Times has a couple of photos and links to others of sites that may be the yellowcake plant alleged to have been built recently in Saudi Arabia by China.
They are cautious about the claims.
American officials said that the Saudi efforts were still in an early stage, and that intelligence analysts had yet to draw firm conclusions about some of the sites under scrutiny.
Here’s the first of their photos:
The caption is
An image taken May 27 showing, top right, two square buildings that some analysts think could be a Saudi nuclear facility. It is located near the Solar Village, bottom left. Credit…Maxar Technologies/Google Earth
The scale bar is cut off, so it’s not possible to use it. Let’s say that the highway lanes are about 4 meters and use them to measure those buildings. I get maybe 30 meters for both, in both dimensions.
The buildings are featureless and without a sturdy road to the main highway. Perhaps it is yet to be built. There is a narrow road from the buildings to the solar facility. There is no tailings pond for aqueous waste. Perhaps that is also to be built.
There is also a picture of the two buildings under construction, in a different orientation.
A Google Earth image taken on Jan. 11, 2014, showing buildings early in the construction process at the suspected nuclear facility.Credit…CNES/Airbus/Google Earth
The circular structures could be to hold processing equipment, although there is more to producing yellowcake than aqueous processing in vats. They could also be a way to produce a very strong floor, which might be needed for many reasons – heavy equipment storage, for one, or other equipment associated with the solar site.
The article mentions a report by David Albright of the Institute for Science and International Security, which sees little to be concerned about the site other than its remoteness and separation from the solar facility. There is no link to the report, and it may not be online.
He noted that his examination of satellite images could identify no signs of processing equipment or raw materials arriving at the desert facility.
Another site was located by Frank Pabian, with eight photos in two tweets. This site contains a pond that might be used for tailings disposal, which existed before the building was completed. The photos also show piles of earth or similar material that come and go, along with some large truck traffic.
Both of these sites are extremely small for uranium ore processing.
Dave Schmerler recently looked at a North Korean uranium mine and mill. The first picture shows the tailings pond on the other side of the river, and the second is a closeup of the buildings.
Those lone one and two buildings in Saudi Arabia are nothing like this.
Where is the mine? Because yellowcake is maybe 1% of what is mined, large amounts of material must be moved. Thus, mills are usually close to their mines. Are there signs of excavation or tunnels nearby these structures, say within a few kilometers? And heavy mining equipment? Where do the workers live? What is the source of water?
The New York Times has several people who do open-source intelligence. They were not the reporters on this article. I’d like to hear from them. Also Bellingcat and CNS!
Cross-posted to Nuclear Diner
Hunter Gathers
I got some yellow cake.
I keep it in a special CIA napkin.
Pray to God that I don’t drop that shit.
oatler.
“American officials said OIL that the Saudi efforts were OIL still in an early stage, and that OIL intelligence analysts OIL had yet to draw firm conclusions OIL about some of the sites under scrutiny.”
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
I’ll just say it would be incredibly stupid of the CCP to build a facility for the Saudis to help them begin to process uranium ore. It would be irresponsible given the geopolitics of that region
Roger Moore
The next obvious question is who would want to spread rumors about Saudi nuclear plans like this. I can think of a variety of reasons. The most obvious is someone wants to drive a wedge between us and the Saudis. Another is that someone wants to sell nuclear plants to the Saudis and thinks the sale will be easier if there’s a threat that they might otherwise develop nuclear technology themselves. I’m sure there are other possibilities.
Cheryl Rofer
@Roger Moore: Thank you. Your second reason reminds me of a post that has long been simmering on the back burner.
NotMax
When it turns out to be a Duncan Hines plant, won’t some people’s faces be red.
“That building is for yellow cake, the other for carrot.”
//
John Revolta
Would a very strong floor be necessary for such a plant?
JDM
If I were a betting man, I’d say it was the “we HAVE to sell this to them (well, some of my pals will do the actual selling) cause otherwise THE COMMIES are going to do it!” scenario.
WhatsMyNym
The current photos on Google maps are clearer. Just search for Solar Village, Saudi Arabia. There’s more things going on to north of those buildings.
Ken
No problem. Trump just needs to call his good pal Mohammed bin Salman and ask what the plant’s for. MBS will say it’s a bacon factory, and that will be good enough for Trump.
Patricia Kayden
Man, Trump has really made the world so much safer. MAGA!!
/s
Cheryl Rofer
@WhatsMyNym: Interesting that the Times didn’t use more current photos. The stuff to the north of the two buildings looks like a sewage plant.
Benw
Why would the Saudis make nukes when they can make THE ORB
https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-saudi-orb-gift-us-embassy-riyadh-hidden-mbs-book-2020-3
Roger Moore
@Cheryl Rofer:
I’m not normally enough of a conspiracy monger to come up with something like that by myself. I remember Michael Flynn was involved in some kind of harebrained scheme to sell nuclear technology to the Saudis, so hearing somebody talking about them building plants made me wonder if that scheme might be related.
Archon
If I’m the Saudi Arabia royal family I can easily see how I can be completely isolated politically 10 years from now.
Strategically I think it would make sense for them to build a bomb. We don’t overthrow countries with nuclear weapons.
WhatsMyNym
@Cheryl Rofer: The buildings each look like over 200 ft in both dimensions to me.
Cheryl Rofer
@WhatsMyNym: How are you measuring them?
WhatsMyNym
@Cheryl Rofer:
I’m on Android. Just putting the scale over them.
ETA: more importantly, the nearby Bread Csfe has a rating of 4.2 with 72 reviews.
Cheryl Rofer
@WhatsMyNym: I am measuring in meters. So not as far apart as you might think.
HBinPhilly
The Times referenced this article in its “Morning” section including this: “But the spy agencies have been reluctant to warn of progress, for fear of repeating the colossal intelligence mistake that led to the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003.“ Calling this failure a “mistake“ is a colossal mistake itself.
Chyron HR
So what’s the government’s game here? “Only Donald Trump can stand up to Saudi Arabia”?
WhatsMyNym
@Cheryl Rofer: I thought you wrote 30 meters? 200 ft is twice that, each building.
Cermet
Kinda lost – any country that signed the non-proliferation treaty is allowed to process urainium ore into yellow cake; then enrich it (if they so desire) to fuel grade (about 20% if I recall correctly.) This is a nothing burger if they signed the treaty. Otherwise – lets bomb, bomb, bomb their oil fields and make gasoline $12/gal!
Cheryl Rofer
@WhatsMyNym: I’m leaving lots of room for error, in your measurement and mine.
Robert Sneddon
Saudi Arabia is a signatory to the NPT with IAEA safeguards. It can buy yellowcake by the tonne on the world markets if they want, it’s cheap as chips at about $35 a pound. They would only build a production plant to process uranium ore into yellowcake (U3O8) if they were planning to mine uranium ore inside their own borders and that sort of operation would be a lot more visible than a few buildings under construction here and there. Is there any sort of mining operation anywhere in Saudi that could produce uranium ore even as an adjunct? Does the geology of the region indicate there might be deposits worth digging for?
Worst case, if the Saudi government wanted uranium that badly they could extract it from seawater using ion exchange resin mats, a proven if expensive option. It’s nowhere as cheap as free-market yellowcake delivered by the shipload from Kazakhstan or Canada or Australia but they have a lot of coastline.
Robert Sneddon
@Cermet: “Fuel” grade enrichment for light-water reactors and most other power reactors like the CANDUs and AGRs maxes out at about 5%. There are a few oddball reactors that can and do use higher enrichment levels like the ex-Soviet BN-600 and the newer fast-spectrum BN-800 and there were a lot of small research reactors that did have cores with 20% enriched fuel — most of those have been either decommissioned or the cores replaced with low-enriched fuel due to fears of nuclear weapons proliferation.
Cheryl Rofer
@Robert Sneddon: Yep, with one qualification.
If they wanted to do something clandestinely, they might want to mine and process their own uranium. But a mine would be obvious, and nobody’s said where it is. If there is one.
Robert Sneddon
@Cheryl Rofer: Places uranium can be mined are not uncommon but they’re usually pretty well known given the drive to secure uranium supplies around the world starting in the late 1940s. Where in Saudi could such a mine be? Is there a copper mine or similar somewhere within the Saudi borders where uranium might be an adjunct product, like Olympic Dan in Australia? The geology of Saudi is pretty well known, it’s unlikely there’s a Cigar Lake-type deposit that no-one knew about until recently.
They could be shipping in raw uranium ore from outside the country, I suppose but that’s silly — if they considered doing that they could have just carried out clandestine transfers of yellowcake or even ready-to-enrich UF6.
kindness
I can’t imagine the Saudis really want nuclear power all that much. The only thing I feel they might want uranium for is a bomb. In their neck of the woods I can superficially understand they might want a bomb. Israel has hundreds of them (allegedly), the US has become a fickle partner. I mean they might love Trump because he is so freaking corruptable but the US is no longer seen across the world as steady, stable. Even by our allies. And I don’t blame them.
But deeper I would expect any other nation to see that nukes as weapons aren’t really a good bet. You can never use them, you can only bluff & bluster with them. They’re expensive to make and to maintain. And they have lingering after affects. You don’t want to really use them near your own territory. Saudi Arabia is unhappy with Iran, factions in Lebannon, Iraq & sometimes Turkey but not so much now. Everything is close by. Can’t ‘safely’ use them. So nukes are just another pissing contest for them then?
Doug R
@Robert Sneddon: I believe Saudi Arabia bought a majority stake in Canada’s Wheat Board and all current Uranium production in Canada (the world’s second largest producer) comes from mines in Northern Saskatchewan.
Obvious Russian Troll
Hey, how about the alleged Saudi hit squad sent to Toronto to kill another dissident? Allegedly they were foiled by the immigration and customs people when they landed at Pearson.
https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2020/08/06/saudi-hit-squad-was-sent-to-canada-to-try-to-kill-former-intel-official-lawsuit-alleges.html
Robert Sneddon
@kindness:
The Saudis have expressed an interest in building and operating significant numbers of nuclear power plants in the past but as for actual contracts and construction, nothing as yet. Their population is expanding and they burn a lot of gas to desalinate seawater to provide for that population as well as generating electricity for their high-tech lifestyle by consuming even more gas and oil. They’d rather sell that fossil carbon abroad than burn it at home, basically.
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) have actually plumped for nuclear power with the South Koreans building four of their KPR1400 reactors at Barakh. The first reactor went critical a few days ago and it should be in commercial production by the end of the year. The second reactor is complete and beginning cold and hot tests before fuelling commences. The final two reactors at Barakh are pretty much on track for completion by the end of 2022. The Saudi government may be watching their neighbours to see how the Barakh plant works out, especially the economics of operations which are being carried out on a turnkey basis with the South Koreans providing enriched fuel and disposing of spent fuel for the UAE.
billcinsd
Well, if the geology is correct, it is fairly common to use in situ leaching to leach the uranium underground and only take the leach solution to the surface. You could probably do this with just the pump house visible on the surface. You also would need a building for the pregnant leach solution processing. When I toured a uranium processing facility adjacent the Bingham Canyon copper mine 30-35 years ago, they used a Higgins loop and solvent extraction which would be fairly cheap and not too big of a footprint depending on the volume of leach solution
J R in WV
Many years ago my rock hounding buddy and I went to Colorado and Wyoming to hunt for cool rocks. We went on a huge clockwise circle for 3 weeks, starting and ending in Denver, staying in a friends camp at 10K feet west of Canyon City and exploring all around west and south of Salida, drove up Mt Antero, etc.
We went into Utah a little, visited Dinosaur National Monument, then visited Fossil Butte National Monument in SW Wyoming, dug for petrified wood in the flats east of there, drove north and crossed the Continental Divide.
Then we drove south from the Wind River Reservation through the Continental Divide Basin, a desolate place where the Divide splits around a very wild and unimproved basin on a dirt road… lots of dirt roads in WY, mostly very good, this one was pretty curvy. We were driving a Ford Ranger and pulling an old trailer full of rocks and tools and camping gear, so not too fast. Antelope running away from us was a frequent thing.
There were several drilling sites, with flares burning off methane, ponds of drilling fluids, giant pumps and derricks, but no houses, no ranches, just the dirt road.
Then off to our left, east, on a ridge, we saw a HUGE industrial installation, which I looked up on our Topographical maps. It was a Kerr McGee processing plant. Enormous. We knew from our research that minerals like carnotite (a uranium containing mineral ) were present in the basin. We checked often for any signs of radioactivity above background, but never came across anything… even tho we were below the Kerr-McGee plant on grade.
That plant would have been hundreds of yards/meters long, perhaps a mile or more, with many separate buildings and industrial structures. I can’t find it on Google now, I suppose it could have been taken down and reclaimed. Or perhaps fuzzed out for national security if still extant.
Pretty cool to have an antelope just run away from you driving along at 50 MPH… amazing animals! Wonderful countryside.
Cheryl Rofer
@billcinsd: Yes, a solution plant would have a smaller footprint than conventional mining. But it has to be located at the mine site. No drilling has been reported at the sites in the NYT, so probably not, but something to keep in mind.
Robert Sneddon
@Cheryl Rofer: In-situ leach operations to recover uranium without mining operations are very fussy in regards to the geology of the location being exploited. It basically requires impervious aquifer-like structures underground that will contain the leach and allow injection and recovery of the working fluid rather than have it lost through cracks and faults in the strata. There are only a few ore bodies in the world suitable for in-situ leach because of this.
Really, if chemical extraction of uranium is chosen as the way forward then ion-exchange resin mats in seawater have been proven to work, although expensive (estimates, somewhat dated though, say $300 per kilo of uranium metal if productionised) and seawater is readily available to most nations with a shoreline like Saudi.