Portal:Nuclear technology

• Nuclear technology is technology that involves the nuclear reactions of atomic nuclei. Among the notable nuclear technologies are nuclear reactors, nuclear medicine and nuclear weapons. It is also used, among other things, in smoke detectors and gun sights. (Full article...)
  
• Nuclear power is the use of nuclear reactions to produce electricity. Nuclear power can be obtained from nuclear fission, nuclear decay and nuclear fusion reactions. Presently, the vast majority of electricity from nuclear power is produced by nuclear fission of uranium and plutonium in nuclear power plants. Nuclear decay processes are used in niche applications such as radioisotope thermoelectric generators in some space probes such as Voyager 2. Reactors producing controlled fusion power have been operated since 1958 but have yet to generate net power and are not expected to be commercially available in the near future. (Full article...)
  
• A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either nuclear fission (fission or atomic bomb) or a combination of fission and nuclear fusion reactions (thermonuclear weapon), producing a nuclear explosion. Both bomb types release large quantities of energy from relatively small amounts of matter. (Full article...)

In 1952, the United Kingdom became the third country (after the United States and the Soviet Union) to develop and test nuclear weapons, and is one of the five nuclear-weapon states under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. As of 2025, the UK possesses a stockpile of approximately 225 warheads, with 120 deployed on its only delivery system, the Trident programme's submarine-launched ballistic missiles. Additionally, United States B61 nuclear bombs have been stored at RAF Lakenheath since 2025. In 2025, the UK announced plans to procure 12 F-35A aircraft capable of delivering B61s.

Since 1969, the Royal Navy has operated the continuous at-sea deterrent, with at least one ballistic missile submarine always on patrol. Under the Polaris Sales Agreement, the US supplied the UK with Polaris missiles and nuclear submarine technology, in exchange for the general commitment of these forces to NATO. In 1982, an amendment allowed the purchase of Trident II missiles, and since 1998, Trident has been the only nuclear weapons system in British service. Four Vanguard-class submarines are based at HMNB Clyde in Scotland. Each is armed with up to sixteen Trident II missiles, each carrying warheads in up to eight multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicles (MIRVs).

The UK initiated the world's first nuclear weapons programme, codenamed Tube Alloys, in 1941 during the Second World War. At the 1943 Quebec Conference, it was merged with the American Manhattan Project, but collaboration ended in 1946. The UK initiated an independent programme, High Explosive Research, testing its first nuclear weapon in 1952. In total the UK conducted 45 nuclear tests, 12 in Australia, 9 in the Pacific, and 24 at the Nevada Test Site, with its last in 1991. The UK and France are the only two nuclear-armed countries that have ratified the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty.

The British hydrogen bomb programme's success with its Operation Grapple Pacific nuclear testing led to the 1958 US–UK Mutual Defence Agreement. This nuclear Special Relationship has involved the exchange of classified scientific data, warhead designs, and fissile materials. UK warheads are designed and manufactured by the Atomic Weapons Establishment.

During the Cold War, the Royal Air Force operated the V bomber fleet for strategic weapons, followed by aircraft in tactical nuclear roles using WE.177 bombs. The RAF also planned to operate the cancelled Blue Streak intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM). The RAF also briefly operated Thor IRBMs under US custody, while both the RAF and the British Army of the Rhine operated US-custody tactical bombs, missiles, depth charges and artillery. US Air Force nuclear weapons were stationed in the UK between 1954 and 2008, and from 2025. (Full article...)

• ... that the medieval Castle Knob was the site of a Cold War nuclear monitoring station?
• ... that a forest in northern Wisconsin was subject to nuclear-radiation testing in the 1970s?
• ... that the 1991 Andover tornado narrowly avoided hitting two warplanes equipped with nuclear warheads?
• ... that the Fernald Feed Materials Production Center produced uranium for nuclear weapons between 1951 and 1989?
• ... that Jeya Wilson invited New Zealand prime minister David Lange to debate the moral indefensibility of nuclear weapons at the Oxford Union?
• ... that poet Peggy Pond Church became a strong pacifist and a member of the Society of Friends after the Manhattan Project used her home as a place to build nuclear weapons?

• WikiProject Energy
• WikiProject Technology
• WikiProject Military history

Seaborg spent most of his career as an educator and research scientist at the University of California, Berkeley, serving as a professor, and, between 1958 and 1961, as the university's second chancellor. He advised ten US presidents—from Harry S. Truman to Bill Clinton—on nuclear policy and was Chairman of the United States Atomic Energy Commission from 1961 to 1971, where he pushed for commercial nuclear energy and the peaceful applications of nuclear science. Throughout his career, Seaborg worked for arms control. He was a signatory to the Franck Report and contributed to the Limited Test Ban Treaty, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. He was a well-known advocate of science education and federal funding for pure research. Toward the end of the Eisenhower administration, he was the principal author of the Seaborg Report on academic science, and, as a member of President Ronald Reagan's National Commission on Excellence in Education, he was a key contributor to its 1983 report "A Nation at Risk".

Seaborg was the principal or co-discoverer of ten elements: plutonium, americium, curium, berkelium, californium, einsteinium, fermium, mendelevium, nobelium and element 106, then called unnilhexium, which while he was still living, was named seaborgium in his honor. He said about this naming, "This is the greatest honor ever bestowed upon me—even better, I think, than winning the Nobel Prize. Future students of chemistry, in learning about the periodic table, may have reason to ask why the element was named for me, and thereby learn more about my work." He also discovered more than 100 isotopes of transuranium elements and is credited with important contributions to the chemistry of plutonium, originally as part of the Manhattan Project where he developed the extraction process used to isolate the plutonium fuel for the implosion-type atomic bomb. Early in his career, he was a pioneer in nuclear medicine and discovered isotopes of elements with important applications in the diagnosis and treatment of diseases, including iodine-131, which is used in the treatment of thyroid disease. In addition to his theoretical work in the development of the actinide concept, which placed the actinide series beneath the lanthanide series on the periodic table, he postulated the existence of super-heavy elements in the transactinide and superactinide series.

After sharing the 1951 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Edwin McMillan, he received approximately 50 honorary doctorates and numerous other awards and honors. The list of things named after Seaborg ranges from the chemical element seaborgium to the asteroid 4856 Seaborg. He was the author of numerous books and 500 journal articles, often in collaboration with others. He was once listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the person with the longest entry in Who's Who in America. (Full article...)

13 March 2026 – El Salvador–United States relations, Nuclear power in El Salvador

El Salvador and the United States sign Agreement 123 under the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 to build a nuclear power plant in El Salvador that is planned to be operational by 2030. (El Mundo in Spanish)

3 March 2026 – Middle Eastern crisis

The International Atomic Energy Agency confirms the entrances to the underground Natanz Nuclear Facility in Iran have been bombed. However, there are no signs of any increase in radiation at the facility. (Reuters)

3 March 2026 –

Purported yakuza leader Takeshi Ebisawa is convicted by a New York federal court and sentenced to 20 years in prison for trafficking nuclear material, drugs, and weapons. (Japan Times)

2 March 2026 – France and weapons of mass destruction

French president Emmanuel Macron announces that France will increase its stockpile of nuclear weapons for the first time in decades citing global threats such as Russia's war on Ukraine, China's growing military power in Asia, and changing U.S. defense priorities as reasons for the nuclear build-up. (Politico)