12/84Estimated number of defense-industry jobs that would be lost in the event of a nuclear freeze: 250,000
12/84Percentage of Americans who, in 1981, thought their chances of surviving a nuclear war were fifty-fifty: 32
7/84Amount that a nuclear freeze would save the U.S. between now and the year 2000: $400,000,000,000
U.S. tests: 13
8/85Chances that one of the 120 operating U.S. nuclear reactors will melt down in the next 20 years: 45 in 100
Who say the “bad effects” of credit cards outweigh the good: 46
10/88Percentage of Americans who oppose using nuclear arms in response to a non-nuclear Soviet invasion of Europe: 88
2/89Projected federal spending in 1989 on cleanups of nuclear-weapons plants: $973,417,000
Projected federal spending in 1989 on construction of nuclear-weapons plants: $403,000,000
1/90Percentage of Americans who said in 1984 that the threat of nuclear war with the Soviet Union was a “very important” problem: 70
Percentage of Americans who say today that environmental degradation is a “very serious” threat to national security: 77
5/90Portion of all nuclear-plant waste that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission considers “below regulatory concern”: 1/2
8/90Federal funds to be spent this year on lead-lined trucks to house the administration during nuclear attack: $58,000,000
Amount the President proposes to spend on this program next year: $85,000,000
9/90Number of people who can be tested for radiation exposure in one day on France’s “hospital train”: 5,000
4/91Number of beagles used in radiation research that the Department of Energy will bury in a toxic-waste dump in 1991: 850
8/91Rank of nuclear power, among energy sources that Americans believe the country should rely on more in the future: 1
8/91Percentage of Americans who say that a nuclear power plant in their own community would be “unacceptable”: 60
8/91Estimated radiation dose absorbed by President Bush during his thyroid treatment, in rads: 4
8/91Average radiation dose absorbed last year by a person living 100 miles from the Chernobyl reactor, in rads: 0.4
8/91Pounds of opium stockpiled by the U.S. Defense Department to treat radiation sickness: 32,000
10/92Asking price for a former U.S. Air Force nuclear-bomb shelter in Amherst, Massachusetts: $250,000
10/92Number of the 20 U.S. communities applying to host nuclear-waste dumpsites that are Indian reservations: 16
11/92Percentage change in housing prices near Washington’s Hanford Nuclear Reactor since its cleanup began in 1989: +50
6/93Ratio of U.S. aid pledged to Russia to U.S. spending on strategic nuclear weapons and defense systems next year: 2:3
9/93Estimated number of nuclear reactors it would take to supply the energy consumed by U.S. refrigerators: 25
10/94Maximum amount of radiation per American the government allows nuclear facilities to release each year, in millirems: 100
Chances that a person exposed to such radiation will get cancer, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission: 1 in 286
3/94Portion of all nuclear reactors currently under construction worldwide that are of Soviet design: 1/3
11/95Federal funds spent on maintaining nuclear testing operations since U.S. testing was halted in 1992: $1,185,600,000
4/97Hours that 3 miles of Nebraska’s Route 83 were closed last fall when a truck carrying two nuclear bombs overturned: 2
12/98Amount the U.S. Energy Department plans to spend by 2000 to keep Russian nuclear scientists employed: $40,000,000
8/98Estimated number of news stories published worldwide this year on India’s imminent nuclear-test plans: 500
8/98Number of years the U.S. trained Pakistani nuclear-research scientists as part of the “Atoms for Peace ” program: 19
8/98Truckloads of nuclear waste the Department of Energy plans to begin driving to New Mexico for storage this year: 37,000
Number of highway accidents the DOE estimates these shipments will be involved in through the year 2033: 50
9/98Average annual amount the U.S. will spend on nuclear-arms programs through the year 2008: $4,500,000,000
9/98Average annual U.S. spending on nuclear-arms programs during the Cold War: $3,700,000,000
10/99Year in which some of the nuclear “secrets” that Congress alleges China stole were published in the U.S.: 1984
12/99Chance that an American favors the resumption of any form of nuclear-xweapons testing: 1 in 10
12/99Total number of nuclear weapons worldwide when the first nuclear test ban negotiations began in 1958: 10,713
Percentage by which the number had changed by the time the Limited Test Ban Treaty was signed in 1963: +220
Percentage by which it has changed since then: -7
8/99Tons of uranium from Russia’s nuclear arsenal that the country will sell to a U.S. company over the next twenty years: 500
1/00Number of New York City children issued Civil Defense dog tags by 1952 to identify them after a nuclear attack: 2,500,000
1/00Number of false alarms of nuclear missile attacks generated by the U.S. early warning system between 1977 and 1984: 20,784
1/00Number of U.S. nuclear bombs currently on “high alert”: 2,380
2/00Days after Ukraine reopened a nuclear reactor at Chernobyl last November that a water leak forced a shutdown: 6
5/00Factor by which a shipment of Ukrainian mushrooms seized by French customs last year exceeded legal radiation limits: 12
10/01Percentage of Russian nuclear scientists who say they are willing to work on another country’s missile-defense program: 21
10/01Minimum number of nations currently targeted by the United States ‘ integrated nuclear-war plan: 5
10/01Maximum domestic damages at which a U.S. law caps U.S. liability for a nuclear accident in space: $9,500,000,000
Maximum total foreign damages at which the same law caps U.S. liability for such an accident: $100,000,000
11/01Percentage of Americans who live within a half mile of nuclear-waste transport routes to a proposed dump in Nevada: 18
12/01Estimated number of mock commando raids on U.S. nuclear-weapons facilities that have been staged since 1995: 100
Minimum number that succeeded in breaching security: 50
4/01Percentage of U.S. nuclear power plants operating in 1996 that have since broken federal safety regulations: 92
4/01Number of accidents involving U.S. nuclear arms between 1950 and 1980, according to the Pentagon: 32
6/01Annual amount spent since 1995 to maintain a former U.S. congressional nuclear shelter as a tourist site: $500,000
7/01Factor by which radiation-dose levels found in the Library of Congress exceed typical levels outside a nuclear plant: 260
10/02Months since his release from prison that nuclear scientist Wen Ho Lee has been looking for work: 24
11/02Number of reports that President Bush referred to on September 7 as evidence of Iraq’s nuclear threat: 2
Last year in which the agency Bush cited as the reports’ author had new information on Iraq’s nuclear program: 1998
Number of “indications” the agency had then of “any physical capability” to produce weapons-grade nuclear material: 0
12/02Pounds of weapons-grade uranium reported to have been seized in September from a taxi in Turkey: 33
Ounces of black sand that the container-labeled “primarily youranuom”-actually contained: 0.2
4/02Number of accidents the U.S. nuclear submarine that capsized a Japanese fishing boat last year has had since then: 2
4/02Chances that a country recently cited by the Pentagon as a potential U.S. nuclear target has no nuclear arms: 5 in 7
5/02Minutes from nuclear armageddon shown on the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists”doomsday clock” this year: 7
Minutes by which this differs from the time published set on the clock in 1947, despite 17 adjustments since then: 0
5/02Shipments of nuclear waste to be trucked cross-country once Nevada’s Yucca Mountain dump opens in 2010: 96,000
Annual number of “accidents or incidents” that Nevada estimates these trucks will be involved in through 2048: 54
6/02Estimated percentage of the inhabitants of the contiguous United States who have been exposed to nuclear fallout: 100
7/02Length in pages of the U.S.-Soviet nuclear-arms-reduction treaty signed by George H.W. Bush in 1991: 630
8/02Estimated number of survivors of the 1945 U.S. atomic bomb attacks in Japan now living in the United States: 1,000
9/02Estimated portion of all U.S. nuclear waste that Nevada’s Yucca Mountain dumpsite will hold when it is full in 2046: 3/5
9/02Minimum number of U.S. companies, individuals, and organizations that are licensed to possess radioactive material: 67,000
9/02Decades by which the United States applied last spring to extend its nuclear testing in the Marshall Islands: 4
1/03Price charged by a Ukrainian company for a half-day tour of the Chernobyl nuclear-plant site: $460
12/03Days after a 1961 meeting with Khrushchev that President Kennedy leaked claims of U.S. nuclear-missile superiority: 29
5/03Pounds of steel discovered to have been eaten away from the head of an Ohio nuclear reactor in February 2002: 70
Thickness in inches of the warped stainless steel that remained to prevent the reactor from rupturing into the air: 3/8
9/03Number of officials who ever suggested that Iraq had nuclear weapons, according to Donald Rumsfeld in June: 0
9/03Price a San Diego physicist paid at auction in June for mechanisms used to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima: $167,000
9/03Percentage of Americans in June who favored U.S. military action to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons: 56
Percentage in July who disapproved of the United States waging preemptive attacks on any country: 58
12/04Minimum number of countries with a greater capacity to produce nuclear weapons than Iraq at the time of the U.S. invasion: 35
4/04Number of countries whose technologies are suspected of having contributed to Pakistan’s nuclear program: 6
Number of countries that have received Pakistani nuclear technology: 4
4/04Estimated number of years that guards at the top U.S. nuclear storehouse have cheated during anti-terrorism drills: 20
9/04Months after reporting missing radioactive spent fuel rods last April that a Vermont nuclear plant found them in a safe place: 3
9/04Secret access code to the computer controls of the U.S. nuclear-tipped missile arsenal between 1968 and 1976: 00000000
3/05Percentage that Libyan nuclear compliance “contributed” to President Bush’s reelection, according to Muammar Qaddafi: 50
6/05Year by which every U.S. nuclear weapon will have reached the end of its original design life: 2014
5/07Denomination in rials of Iran’s new largest banknote, which features a nuclear-power symbol on its back: 50,000
6/07Chance that a watt of U.S. nuclear energy is generated in part by material from former Soviet warheads: 1 in 2
10/08Number of Middle Eastern nations that have announced plans to pursue nuclear power since January 2007: 13