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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.
Bruce W. Knight, Jr.
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 19 | Number 4 | August 1964 | Pages 393-399
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE64-A18994
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A tractable mixed numerical-analytic method is given for the approximate design of reflected reactors with cores having simultaneously flat power density, fuel loading, absorber distribution, and moderator distribution. The method as applied to finite cylinders yields a fast digital routine (about 1 sec/calculation on the IBM 704) which gives trustworthy criticality values in systems with important neutron capture at energies above thermal. Corroborative experiments on critical assemblies containing molybdenum and tungsten show power distributions flat to within ±5%.