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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.
Zhang Huanqiao, Liu Zuhua, Ding Shengyue, and Liu Shaoming
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 86 | Number 3 | March 1984 | Pages 315-319
Technical Note | doi.org/10.13182/NSE84-A17560
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
This research was published (in Chinese) in Chin. J. Nucl. Phys., 3, 2, 149 (1981). The average number of prompt neutron and the distributions of prompt neutron number probability P(ν) for spontaneous fission of 240Pu, 242Cm, and 244Cm relative to (252Cf) have been measured using a large gadolinium-loaded liquid scintillation counter with a co-incidence method. The results were (240Pu) = 2.141 ± 0.016, (242Cm) = 2.562 ± 0.020, and (244Cm) = 2.721 ±0.021. The measured distributions of prompt neutron number were fitted with Gaussian curves by a weighted least-squares method. The widths of Gaussian distribution are 1.149 ± 0.047, 1.159 ± 0.074, and 1.175 ± 0.098 for 240Pu, 242Cm, and 244Cm, respectively. These results as well as a previous measurement of spontaneous fission of 252Cf show the linear variation of σ with at the first order of approximation. The data were fitted by a least-squares method, and the result is given by σ = 0.980 + 0.076. This fact demonstrates the trend that the width of the excitation energy distribution of fission fragments increases with the average excitation energy of the fission fragments in the range of nuclides mentioned above.