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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.
C. R. Richey
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 31 | Number 1 | January 1968 | Pages 32-39
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE68-A18005
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A computational analysis was made for the large number of available critical experiments with hydrogenous mixtures. The calculations were made using both multigroup S4 and diffusion theory with 18 energy groups obtained with the GAMTEC-II code. Resonance capture by the isotope 240Pu was treated in the NR and NRIA approximations. Rather good agreement was found between experiment and theory. The results are given as a parametric survey for Pu densities ranging from 0.015 to 1.0 g/cm3. The calculated minimum critical mass of 239Pu is 547 g for water-reflected aqueous Pu(NO3)4 solutions and 531 g for similar mixtures of 239Pu and water.