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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.
H. K. Clark
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 24 | Number 2 | February 1966 | Pages 133-141
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE66-A18298
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The influence of the distribution of 235U, 239Pu, and 233U in water on the minimum critical mass, the minimum critical concentration per unit length of cylinder, and the minimum critical mass per unit area of slab surface is calculated. Two energy groups are employed in the calculations with parameters normalized to force agreement between calculations and experiments performed with water-reflected spheres containing uniform aqueous solutions having a wide range of concentrations. Calculations made with these parameters for a water-reflected cylinder, in which the optimum distribution for minimum mass was approximated within five coaxial regions, agree well with experimental results. Minimum critical masses, concentrations per unit length of cylinder, and masses per unit area calculated for 235U, 239Pu, and 233U are, respectively, 768 g, 16.9 g/cm, 0.417 g/ cm2; 492 g, 10.6 g/cm, 0.266 g/cm2; and 571 g, 13.5 g/cm, 0.362 g/cm2.