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The deadline arrives: Checking in on the Reactor Pilot Program
On May 23, 2025, President Trump signed Executive Order 14301, “Reforming Nuclear Reactor Testing at the DOE,” which instructed the Department of Energy to create a Reactor Pilot Program (RPP)—a new system in which companies could pursue DOE authorization to build and test their first-of-a-kind nuclear technologies. EO 14301 set an ambitious goal for that program: three reactors achieving criticality by July 4, 2026.
Hiroshi Sekimoto, Zaki Su’ud
Nuclear Technology | Volume 109 | Number 3 | March 1995 | Pages 307-313
Technical Paper | Fission Reactor | doi.org/10.13182/NT109-307
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A conceptual design study of small long-life nuclear power reactors used for a remote or isolated area has been performed. Lead as well as lead-bismuth is employed as the coolant, and both metallic and nitride fuels are investigated. There are some severe requirements on these reactors for operability, maintainability, safety, and proliferation resistance. Some important characteristics of the proposed designs [150 MW(thermal)] are the following: transportability between reactor factory and operation site; capability of long-life operation (12 yr) without refueling or fuel shuffling while maintaining burnup reactivity swing less than 0.1% Δk; negative total core coolant void coefficient of reactivity over all the burnup period; omission of intermediate heat exchanger; and a relatively large contribution of natural circulation.