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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.
Per F. Peterson, Edward Blandford, Christhian Galvez
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 56 | Number 2 | August 2009 | Pages 641-646
Laser Fusion-Fission Hybrid | Eighteenth Topical Meeting on the Technology of Fusion Energy (Part 2) | doi.org/10.13182/FST56-641
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
This paper reviews fission safety design principles and approaches for coupling inertial confinement fusion (ICF) to a subcritical fission blanket, in Laser ICF Fission Energy (LIFE) power plants. LIFE power plants use fuel derived from either spent fuel from fission reactors, or from natural uranium or thorium. By using fusion neutrons, LIFE plants can fission a large fraction of the heavy metal in the fuel, and thus eliminate any need for enrichment of uranium or reprocessing of the fission fuel used in the LIFE plants. This generates security and economic benefits. This paper reviews fission design, safety and licensing issues that are relevant to LIFE power plants.