50 Facts About U.S. Nuclear Weapons

Click here: 50 Facts About U.S. Nuclear Weapons - Brookings Institution
Wednesday April 1, 2009

50 Facts About U.S. Nuclear Weapons:

The U.S. Nuclear Weapons Cost Study Project was completed in August 1998 and resulted in the book Atomic Audit: The Costs and Consequences of U.S. Nuclear Weapons Since 1940 edited by Stephen I. Schwartz. These project pages should be considered historical.


EXCERPT:
http://www.brookings.edu/projects/archive/nucweapons/50.aspx

U.S. Department of Energy

16. Number of dismantled plutonium "pits" stored at the Pantex Plant in Amarillo, Texas: 12,067 (as of May 6, 1999)

U.S. Department of Energy

17. States with the largest number of nuclear weapons (in 1999): New Mexico (2,450), Georgia (2,000), Washington (1,685), Nevada (1,350), and North Dakota (1,140)

William M. Arkin, Robert S. Norris, and Joshua Handler, Taking Stock: Worldwide Nuclear Deployments 1998 (Washington, D.C.: Natural Resources Defense Council, March 1998)

18. Total known land area occupied by U.S. nuclear weapons bases and facilities: 15,654 square miles

U.S. Nuclear Weapons Cost Study Project

19. Total land area of the District of Columbia, Massachusetts, and New Jersey: 15,357 square miles

Rand McNally Road Atlas and Travel Guide, 1992

20. Legal fees paid by the Department of Energy to fight lawsuits from workers and private citizens concerning nuclear weapons production and testing activities, from October 1990 through March 1995: $97,000,000

U.S. Department of Energy

21. Money paid by the State Department to Japan following fallout from the 1954 "Bravo" test: $15,300,000

Barton C. Hacker, Elements of Controversy: The Atomic Energy Commission and Radiation Safety in Nuclear Weapons Testing, 1947 -1974, University of California Press, 1994, p. 158

22. Money and non-monetary compensation paid by the the United States to Marshallese Islanders since 1956 to redress damages from nuclear testing: at least $759,000,000

U.S. Nuclear Weapons Cost Study Project

23. Money paid to U.S. citizens under the Radiation Exposure and Compensation Act of 1990, as of January 13, 1998: approximately $225,000,000 (6,336 claims approved; 3,156 denied)

U.S. Department of Justice, Torts Branch, Civil Division

24. Total cost of the Aircraft Nuclear Propulsion (ANP) program, 1946-1961: $7,000,000,000

"Aircraft Nuclear Propulsion Program," Report of the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, September 1959, pp. 11-12

25. Total number of nuclear-powered aircraft and airplane hangars built: 0 and 1

Ibid; "American Portrait: ANP," WFAA-TV (Dallas), 1993. Between July 1955 and March 1957, a specially modified B-36 bomber made 47 flights with a three megawatt air-cooled operational test reactor (the reactor, however, did not power the plane).

26. Number of secret Presidential Emergency Facilities built for use during and after a nuclear war: more than 75

Bill Gulley with Mary Ellen Reese, Breaking Cover, Simon and Schuster, 1980, pp. 34- 36

27. Currency stored until 1988 by the Federal Reserve at its Mount Pony facility for use after a nuclear war: more than $2,000,000,000

Edward Zuckerman, The Day After World War III, The Viking Press, 1984, pp. 287-88

28. Amount of silver in tons once used at the Oak Ridge, TN, Y-12 Plant for electrical magnet coils: 14,700

Vincent C. Jones, Manhattan: The Army and the Bomb, U.S. Army Center for Military History, 1985, pp. 66-7

29. Total number of U.S. nuclear weapons tests, 1945-1992: 1,030 (1,125 nuclear devices detonated; 24 additional joint tests with Great Britain)

U.S. Department of Energy

30. First and last test: July 16, 1945 ("Trinity") and September 23, 1992 ("Divider")

U.S. Department of Energy

31. Estimated amount spent between October 1, 1992 and October 1, 1995 on nuclear testing activities: $1,200,000,000 (0 tests)

U.S. Nuclear Weapons Cost Study Project

32. Cost of 1946 Operation Crossroads weapons tests ("Able" and "Baker") at Bikini Atoll: $1,300,000,000

Weisgall, Operation Crossroads, pp. 294, 371

33. Largest U.S. explosion/date: 15 Megatons/March 1, 1954 ("Bravo")

U.S. Department of Energy

34. Number of islands in Enewetak atoll vaporized
by the November 1, 1952 "Mike" H-bomb test: 1

Chuck Hansen, U.S. Nuclear Weapons: The Secret History, Orion Books, 1988, pp. 58-59, 95

35. Number of nuclear tests in the Pacific: 106

Natural Resources Defense Council, Nuclear Weapons Databook Project

36. Number of U.S. nuclear tests in Nevada: 911

Natural Resources Defense Council, Nuclear Weapons Databook Project

37. Number of nuclear weapons tests in Alaska [1, 2, and 3], Colorado [1 and 2], Mississippi and New Mexico [1, 2 and 3]: 10

Natural Resources Defense Council, Nuclear Weapons Databook Project

38. Operational naval nuclear propulsion reactors vs. operational commercial power reactors (in 1999): 129 vs. 108

Adm. Bruce DeMars, Deputy Assistant Director for Naval Reactors, U.S. Navy; Nuclear Regulatory Commission

39. Number of attack (SSN) and ballistic missile (SSBN) submarines (2002): 53 SSNs and 18 SSBNs

Adm. Bruce DeMars, Deputy Assistant Director for Naval Reactors, U.S. Navy

40. Number of high level radioactive waste tanks in Washington, Idaho and South Carolina: 239