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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.
W. A. Reardon, D. E. Christensen
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 30 | Number 2 | November 1967 | Pages 222-232
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE67-A17333
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The graded exposure of 4 plutonium-aluminum alloy, 19-rod clustered fuel elements, and the subsequent destructive sampling of the elements have provided experimental data showing the variation of plutonium isotopes with irradiation. Irradiations were conducted in the heavy-water-moderated and -cooled Plutonium Recycle Test Reactor at Pacific Northwest Laboratory of the Battelle Memorial Institute. Using 137Cs as a fission indicator, the depletion of the initial plutonium to 50.4 ± 1.1% is determined. Reactor effective cross-section ratios for the plutonium isotopes are derived from the data, and results show that the capture-to-fission cross-section ratio for 239Pu (239) is 0.426 ± 0.019.