Atomicland: The new map showing the location of nuclear facilities on the mainland U.S.
– Where’s your nearest nuke? The map that shows where America’s 5,000 nuclear warheads are (Daily Mail, Nov. 13, 2011):
There are currently 5,113 atomic warheads scattered across America and on U.S. submarines around the world.
In 2009, President Obama spoke of his hopes to rid the world of nuclear weapons – but clearly progress has been painfully slow since then.
The Cold War may have ended a generation ago, but a fascinating new map put together by Mother Jones magazine, shows exactly where highly radioactive nuclear material is situated on mainland America.
The map was produced from data suppled by the Defense Department and nuclear watchdog groups.
It shows where the warheads are (in red on the map), where the civilian nuclear power plants can be found (in green) and the location of labs and nuclear weapons plants (in blue).
The green arrows show nuclear
According to The Lookout blog, watchdog groups believe the archaic system for making and storing weapons in the U.S. is both dangerous and expensive.
Mother Jones notes that the country is telling the rest of the world that it is on the road to disarmament.
Atthe same time the U.S. is spending more on the nuclear weapons complex than we did during the Cold War.
The magazine reports that the 5,113 figure does not include ‘zombie’ nukes that are kept in reserve and more than 3,000 warheads awaiting dismantlement.
The map was produced completely with unclassified, public information. As Mother Jones reports, even the military doesn’t hide where it keeps its missiles and bombers.
The sources for the map were the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and Federation of American Scientists, Office of the Deputy Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Nuclear Matters, Nuclear Energy Institute.