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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.
E. F. Bennett
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 27 | Number 1 | January 1967 | Pages 16-27
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE67-A18038
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Small proportional counters containing hydrogen and without collimation have measured reactor neutron spectra with resolution adequate for comparison with existing energy-group methods of calculation over the energy range from 1 keV to 1 MeV. The counters are efficient and operate satisfactorily at low (105/cm2 sec) flux levels. Experimental methods currently in use for in-core measurements using proportional counters vary; the one described here makes use of an electronic pulse-shape discrimination to eliminate the background of gamma radiation. The nature of the numerical procedure required to extract neutron spectra from measured energy distributions of recoil protons bears upon the resolution and statistical precision of the result. Examples of measured neutron spectra are given where they illustrate the various points of experimental technique.