Latest Weapons-grade Stories

The world's first batch of weapons-grade plutonium ever made has been found abandoned at the world's oldest nuclear processing site.The first nuclear reservation established in 1943 at Hanford, Washington, was built to support the U.S.'s pioneering nuclear weapons program.The site was home to the plutonium-239 for Trinity, the first ever nuclear weapon test in 1945. More Hanford plutonium was used in the nuclear strike on Nagasaki a little more than three weeks later.However, Hanford earned...

We, the American people, own a large stock of weapons-grade plutonium. Twenty-pound blocks of plutonium is worth more than gold. We could pay off all of our government's debts and store the plutonium in Fort Knox alongside the gold that is currently owned by foreign governments. W.L. Haynes West Valley City (c) 2008 Deseret News (Salt Lake City). Provided by ProQuest LLC. All rights Reserved.

NEW YORK -- Nobody knows where Oleg Khinsagov got the 100 grams of highly enriched uranium he tried to sell recently to security agents in the former Soviet republic of Georgia.But one thing is for sure - wherever it came from, there's plenty more. The most recent episode of international intrigue involving a radioactive substance, revealed by Georgian authorities Wednesday, demonstrates just how uncontrolled and easily smuggled nuclear bomb-making materials are in the states of the former...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Pakistan is building a reactor that could produce enough plutonium for 40 to 50 nuclear weapons in what would be a major expansion of its nuclear program, The Washington Post reported on Monday. Satellite photos show what appears to be the construction site for a larger nuclear reactor adjacent to Pakistan's only plutonium production reactor, according to an analysis by nuclear experts at the Washington-based Institute for Science, the newspaper said. The...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said on Friday it awarded $1.16 billion in contracts to three companies to develop sophisticated equipment to scan cargo at border cities for nuclear weapons material. Raytheon Co., Thermo Electron Corp. and Canberra Industries were awarded the contracts for a program known as the advanced spectroscopic portal. The equipment will be used by U.S. Customs and border officials to more clearly distinguish between naturally...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said on Friday it awarded $1.16 billion in contracts to three companies to develop sophisticated equipment to scan cargo at border cities for nuclear weapons material.Raytheon Co., Thermo Electron Corp. and Canberra Industries were awarded the contracts for a program known as the advanced spectroscopic portal.The equipment will be used by U.S. Customs and border officials to more clearly distinguish between naturally occurring...