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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.
J. D. Spencer, T. G. Williamson
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 27 | Number 3 | March 1967 | Pages 568-572
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE86-A17623
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The age of fission neutrons was measured to the indium resonance energy for light water and three metal-to-water volume ratios (1/4, 1/2, 2/3) in aluminum- water mixtures. A large plane highly enriched 235U fission plate provided the source of neutrons. Aluminum plates (0.127 × 122 × 122 cm) oriented parallel to the source plane were used for the metal. Indium foil activities were taken in planes parallel to the source and integrated over these planes to obtain the equivalent activities that would result from an infinite source. From these data, the ages for the four cases were: M/W = 0, (26.24 ± 0.33 cm2); M/W = 1/4, (32.28 ± 0.50 cm2); M/W = 1/2, (39.96 ± 0.50 cm2); M/W = 2/3, (44.88 ± 0.59 cm2). To investigate heterogeneous effects, the plates were lumped to simulate 0.635-cm-thick plates and the measurements repeated for the 2/3 metal-to-water ratio. The measured age was 44.50 ± 0.49 cm2, indicating no lumping effect in this measurement. The data for the pure water measurement were also analyzed by applying geometric corrections for the finite size of the source plate. This resulted in a measured age of 27.82 ± 0.66 cm2, which agrees with previous measurements utilizing this method of data analysis.