Since the Three Mile Island accident in 1979, and especially since the Chernobyl accident in 1986, almost no new nuclear reactors have been sold. However, in 1990 Ontario Hydro announced that it wants to build about a dozen more. . . . Alternatively, many of these radioisotopes can be produced in special machines called accelerators, which do not require the use of uranium. Nuclear reactors also serve to drive the propulsion units of nuclear submarines. In addition, special military reactors are used to produce most of the nuclear explosive materials used in nuclear weapons. . . .
Nuclear reactors fuelled with uranium automatically produce plutonium as a byproduct.
If that plutonium is chemically separated from the rest of the radioactive garbage in the spent reactor fuel, it can be used as a nuclear explosive. So, the spread of nuclear power around the world gives more and more countries the option of producing nuclear weapons at some future time. In 1974, India exploded a bomb that was made from plutonium produced in a reactor given to the Indian government as a gift by the Canadian government. Canada has also given or sold reactors to Taiwan, Pakistan, South Korea, Argentina and Romania. During World War II, European scientists worked in a top-secret laboratory in Montreal, paid for by Canada, to find the most efficient method for producing plutonium for atomic bombs.