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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.
L. Meskó, R. Kozma
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 88 | Number 1 | September 1984 | Pages 88-93
Technical Note | doi.org/10.13182/NSE84-A17142
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Using the Markovian description of stochastic processes, the fluctuations in pressurized water reactor cores (for example, temperature and bubble population fluctuations) are modeled. The model includes one-dimensional space and time dependence. Fluctuations are described with the help of a single stochastic variable N(z, t). Generally this approach is not satisfactory in practical problems, but in this way spatial effects can be investigated by a simple model. For this case, connections between moments of N(z, t) are derived. These moments are calculated both for transient and steady-state processes. Introducing spectral density functions in frequency and wave-number domains, a condition is given for the validity of the point model approach.