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The United States is closer to updating its aging nuclear arsenal. Plans went in to affect that would revamp nuclear facilities in California, New Mexico, Texas and Tennessee along with other plants. On October 19 the Bush administration announced it would enact a plan called Complex 2030 in the efforts to improve or replace the 6,000 currently deployable war heads with 2,200 small missile called Reliable Replacement Warhead" (RRW). This is currently on the drawing board with two sites, Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore competing for the task to build these missiles. The NNSA plans to finish the designs for the war heads by December. Then the final step would be to pass the design through congress.
The bush administration said it would also improve the uses of plutonium in sites that already handle the highly toxic man made element. Also highly enriched uranium from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California will be removed. Due to nuclear testing treaties the US plans to use old test data so not to violate or offend others in the nuclear club. The eight sites will have to under go environmental-impact statements which includes hearings and public comments.
The public will also get a chance to review two other plans on the table that were denied. The first is the No Action Alternative, where we do nothing and acknowledge problems as they arise. Then the second is entitled Reduced Operations and Capability-Based Complex Alternative which is favored by anti-nuclear and arm control advocates. This plan in tales that we keep the current level of production of plutonium triggers to 50 a year instead of the 125 a year the current plans estimates it would take to reach a goal of 2200 warheads in the given time period.
The amount of nuclear warheads in the USA is the smallest it has been since 1958. Yet their are thousands of war heads in the U.S alone. Since the cold war the U.S has consolidated weapons and closed bases over seas. According to Natural Resource Council there are an estimated 10,000 U.S Nuclear weapons around the world. 18 sites in 12 States and 6 European countries. Due to recent information from many sources and technologies advancement from Google Earth and Digital Globe information regarding nuclear weapons is available to the masses. During the past 10 years the U.S has removed nuclear weapons from three sites in Californias, Virginia and South Dakota. Also from 1992 to 1997 the US had consolidated War heads across the globe by 5,760 to 12,500.
Over 60 % of what is left is under control of the US air force, stationed in bases around the world. The Air force has 800 bombs and 400 minuteman missiles in North Dakota for its B-52s. Barksdale has 900 in Louisiana and Whiteman in Missouri has 130.The navy is the only other service with nuclear missiles. The navy stores them on each coast. Bangor in Washington has the most at 2,364 or 24% of the stock. The base also contains 9 nuclear subs. On the east coast we have 1,364 missiles located at the Kings Bay Sub base in Georgia.
The U.S also stores nuclear weapons that have been dismantled or are in the process of. In Kirtland Air force base in Albuquerque, New Mexico they store the most at 1,900. Kirtland is designed more as a storage facility then a dismantlement plant. For dismantlement they head off to Texas via Interstate 40. Nellis in Nevada has 900 war heads but like Pantex in Texas its main goal is dismantlement.
At the peak of the cold war The U.S had Nuclear weapons in 17 countries and in 24 states. The number of weapons totaled about 14,000 in the U.S and 6,000 over seas with an additional 4,000 at sea. When the Soviet Union fell in 1991 the U.S withdrew weapons from South Korea and thousands more from the rest of the outside world by 1993. The Army and the marines.core have denuclearized and the Navy had dismantled its nuclear capabilities from warships by the mid 90s. Only about 400 bombs are over seas currently.
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