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1. Cost of the Manhattan Project (through August 1945): $20,000,000,000
SOURCES:
Richard G. Hewlett and Oscar E. Anderson, Jr., The New World: A History of the United States Atomic Energy Commission,
Volume 1, 1939/1946 (Oak Ridge, Tennessee: U.S. AEC Technical Information Center, 1972), pp. 723-724; Condensed AEC Annual
Financial Report, FY 1953 (in Fifteenth Semiannual Report of the Atomic Energy Commission, January 1954, p. 73)
2. Total number of nuclear missiles built, 1951-present: 67,500
U.S. Nuclear Weapons Cost Study Project
3. Estimated construction costs for more than 1,000 ICBM launch pads
and silos, and support facilities, from 1957-1964: nearly $14,000,000,000
Maj. C.D. Hargreaves, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Ballistic Missile
Construction Office (CEBMCO), "Introduction to the CEBMCO Historical Report and History of the Command Section, Pre-CEBMCO
Thru December 1962," p. 8; U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Ballistic Missile Construction Office, "U.S. Air Force ICBM Construction
Program," undated chart (circa 1965)
4. Total number of nuclear bombers built, 1945-present: 4,680
U.S. Nuclear Weapons Cost Study Project
5. Peak number of nuclear warheads and bombs in the stockpile/year: 32,193/1966
Natural Resources Defense Council, Nuclear Weapons Databook Project
6. Total number and types of nuclear warheads and bombs built, 1945-1990:
more than 70,000/65 types
U.S. Department of Energy; Natural Resources Defense Council, Nuclear
Weapons Databook Project
7. Number currently in the stockpile (2002): 10,600 (7,982 deployed, 2,700 hedge/contingency stockpile)
Natural Resources Defense Council, Nuclear Weapons Databook Project
8. Number of nuclear warheads requested by the Army in 1956 and 1957: 151,000
History of the Custody and Deployment of Nuclear Weapons, July 1945
Through September 1977, Prepared by the Office of the Assistant
Secretary of Defense (Atomic Energy), February 1978, p. 50 (formerly Top Secret)
9. Projected operational U.S. strategic nuclear warheads and bombs after
full enactment of the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty in 2012: 1,700-2,200
U.S. Department of Defense; Natural Resources Defense Council, Nuclear
Weapons Databook Project
10. Additional strategic and non-strategic warheads not limited by the
treaty that the U.S. military wants to retain as a "hedge" against unforeseen future threats: 4,900
U..S. Department of Defense; Natural Resources Defense Council, Nuclear
Weapons Databook Project
11. Largest and smallest nuclear bombs ever deployed: B17/B24 (~42,000 lbs., 10-15 megatons); W54 (51 lbs., .01 kilotons, .02 kilotons-1 kiloton)
Natural Resources Defense Council, Nuclear Weapons Databook Project
12. Peak number of operating domestic uranium mines (1955): 925
Nineteenth Semiannual Report of the Atomic Energy Commission, January 1956, p. 31
13. Fissile material produced: 104 metric tons of
plutonium and 994 metric tons of highly-enriched
uranium
U.S. Department of Energy
14. Amount of plutonium still in weapons: 43 metric tons
Natural Resources Defense Council, Nuclear Weapons Databook Project
15. Number of thermometers which could be filled with mercury used to
produce lithium-6 at the Oak Ridge Reservation: 11 billion
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
U.S. Department of Energy
41. Volume in cubic meters of radioactive waste resulting from weapons
activities: 104,000,000
U.S. Department of Energy; Institute for Energy and Environmental Research
42. Number of designated targets for U.S. weapons in the Single Integrated
Operational Plan (SIOP) in 1976, 1986, and 1995: 25,000 (1976), 16,000 (1986) and 2,500 (1995)
Bruce Blair, Senior Fellow, The Brookings Institution
43. Cost of January 17, 1966 nuclear weapons accident over Palomares, Spain (including two lost planes, an extended search and recovery effort, waste disposal in the U.S. and settlement claims): $182,000,000
Joint Committee on Atomic Energy Interoffice Memorandum, February 15,
1968; Center for Defense Information
44. Number of U.S. nuclear bombs lost in accidents and never recovered:
11
U.S. Department of Defense; Center for Defense Information; Greenpeace;
"Lost Bombs," Atwood-Keeney Productions, Inc., 1997
45. Number of Department of Energy federal employees (in 1996): 18,608
U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Worker and Community Transition
46. Number of Department of Energy contractor employees (in 1996): 109,242
U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Worker and Community Transition
47. Minimum number of classified pages estimated to be in the Department
of Energy's possession (1995): 280 million
A Review of the Department of Energy Classification Policy and Practice, Committee on Declassification of Information for the Department of Energy Environmental
Remediation and Related Programs, National Research Council, 1995, pp. 7-8, 68.
48. Ballistic missile defense spending in 1965 vs. 1995: $2,200,000,000
vs. $2,600,000,000
U.S. Nuclear Weapons Cost Study Project
49. Average cost per warhead to the U.S. to help Kazakhstan dismantle
104 SS-18 ICBMs carrying more than 1,000 warheads: $70,000
U.S. Nuclear Weapons Cost Study Project; Arms Control Association
50. Estimated 1998 spending on all U.S. nuclear weapons and weapons-related
programs: $35,100,000,000
U.S. Nuclear Weapons Cost Study Project
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