The images are real (although we don't know the cause):

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/dprk/dprk-dark.htm

Something else interesting:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6241993


>>People of N. Korea are forced to live in darkness, both litereally and figuratively.
>>http://satblog.methaz.org/images/nkor.png
>
>I saw that the other day. Very enlightening (no pun intended) if true. Trouble is, that image would be dead easy to PhotoShop to either embellish the truth, or create an outright lie.
>
>According to the CIA FactBook: comparative electrical consumption:
>South Korea (2004): 321.1 billion kWh
>North Korea (2003): 17.43 billion kWh (about 5.4% that of South Korea)
>
>In the image, the nighttime light output of NK is clearly much less than 5% of SK. There are many possible reasons for this, including:
>
>- lower % of total power use consumed by electric lights
>- mandated "blackout" conditions (i.e. war-time light emissions controls, lights allowed only indoors at night)
>- power plants run only during daylight hours and dedicated largely to industry