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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. Hardy, Jr., D. Klein, J. J. Volpe
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 40 | Number 1 | April 1970 | Pages 101-115
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE70-A18882
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The full-range Monte Carlo program RECAP was used in a consistent analysis of parameters measured in seven H2O-moderated uranium lattices: four were lattices of slightly enriched rods and three were natural-uranium-slab lattices. The most important parameters were: epithermal-to-thermal ratios for 238U capture (ρ28) and for 235U fission (δ25), ratio of 238U fission-to-235U fission (δ28), eigenvalue, integral fast/epithermal spectrum comparisons with a variety of detectors, and resonance integrals for isolated uranium and UO2 rods (calculated with the Monte Carlo program RESQ, supplemented by ZUT and TUZ at higher energies). The analysis of these lattices was fairly unambiguous and served to test the input nuclear data for 238U, 235U, and H2O. With one exception, leakage was small (< 20%) and parameters were measured in nearly asymptotic flux spectra. These covered a wide range of hardness as reflected in the change of parameters: ρ28 ranged from 0.5 to 12; δ25 from 0.04 to 1.1; and δ28 from 0.05 to 0.44. The Monte Carlo cell calculations were corrected for leakage by means of the homogenized lattice programs P3MG and MUFT-MAGMA. With a straightforward choice of current “best” nuclear data, the calculations reproduce virtually all the parameters over the whole range of lattices. There are two qualifications: some reduction of smooth 238U capture integral is required to match the lattice measurements (by an amount barely compatible with the isolated rod measurements), and there is too much calculated epithermal 235U fission in the very tight lattices.