I have often blogged about the problems with disposing of nuclear waste such as spent nuclear fuel from nuclear power plants and toxic mixes of chemicals left over from the manufacture of nuclear weapons such as the contents of the leaking barrels at the U.S. Hanford Nuclear Reservation.
The U.K. currently has fifteen operating nuclear power reactors supplying about twenty percent of their electricity. Half of these plants will be permanently shut down and decommissioned by 2025 because they will have reached the end of their licensed lifespan. The U.K.
I have often mentioned in blog posts that nuclear power has serious international political issues. Major countries with nuclear industries such as the U.S., Russia, China, Japan and South Korea are trying to sell nuclear power reactors to other nations. These are such huge projects that they inevitably become involved with the political and economic relationships between the seller and the buyer.
I have blogged about Pakistan's nuclear arsenal and nuclear policies before. Pakistan has over a hundred nuclear warheads and the means to deliver them. They are in a tense relationship with their neighbor India which also has over a hundred nuclear warheads and multiple delivery systems.
Russia has about seven thousand nuclear warhead and the U.S. has about six thousand and eight hundred. Both countries have missiles, bombers and submarines to deliver those warheads. Both countries have announced ambitious plans to modernize their nuclear arsenals in the coming years. Each country believes that it needs such huge nuclear arsenal to deter an attack by the other.
