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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. L. Brown, L. E. Hansen, H. Toffer
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 35 | Number 3 | March 1969 | Pages 358-363
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE69-A20014
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Exponential and critical approach experiments have been performed to determine material buddings and extrapolation distances for several hexagonal lattice arrays of 2.1 wt% 235U enriched uranium tubes in light water. Tubes of two sizes were measured—2.33-in. o.d., 1.77-in. i.d.; and 1.38-in. o.d., 0.63-in. i.d. The arrays included clean lattices of uranium tubes; uranium tubes containing lithium aluminate target rods; uranium tubes with adjacent neutron absorbing columns; and two mixed lattices of 0.95 and 2.1 wt% enriched tubes—one with the 0.95 and 2.1 wt% tubes evenly distributed in the lattice, and the other with the 0.95 and 2.1 wt% tubes arranged in alternate rings. These experiments supplement data obtained in 1965 for 1.002, 1.25, and 1.95 wt% enriched uranium tubes. Critical parameters for these lattices, calculated with the HAMMER code, agree reasonably well with the measured results.