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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.
R. W. Bauer, J. D. Anderson, S. M. Grimes, D. A. Knapp, V. A. Madsen
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 130 | Number 3 | November 1998 | Pages 348-360
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE98-A2011
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A companion paper presented arguments that support the applicability of a simple Ramsauer model to describe neutron total cross sections. Such a model yields a simple equation for the energy dependence of the cross section of a given nucleus and also allows extrapolation to nuclei of other A values. Fits of the Ramsauer form to very precise total cross sections recently measured over an extended energy range are presented. Very good fits are obtained for neutron energies between 6 and 60 MeV, suggesting that this approach will be useful for estimating cross sections in cases where experimental data are unavailable. Extension of this model to 120 MeV was only moderately successful.