Nuclear power in Menghe
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History
In 1968, four years after the end of the Menghean War of Liberation, the government of the Democratic People's Republic of Menghe established the state-owned Menghean Nuclear Power Corporation (MNPC), which was tasked with surveying the country's territory for possible uranium deposits, constructing uranium enrichment facilities, and developing a domestic nuclear reactor.
General-Secretary Sim Jin-hwan was a major supporter of nuclear power for peaceful purposes, and under his leadership the MNPC increased its research and development efforts. The country secured permission to import a 4-Megawatt research reactor from Letnia in 1972, and brought it online in 1976. In 1978, the country began work on a domestic research reactor, which came online in 1983. Neither of these reactors were hooked up to the national power grid; their main purpose was to build domestic experience with reactor design, and to produce radioactive isotopes for Menghe's covert nuclear weapons program.
Work on a civilian pressurized water reactor began in 1983, with plans for a two-reactor power station. Economic hardship and staff instability resulting from Ryŏ Ho-jun's political purges brought construction to a halt during the early stages, as most engineers behind the project were transferred to weapons production or sent to work camps in the countryside.