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Dallas, TX|Hilton Anatole
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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. C. Lloyd, B. M. Durst, E. D. Clayton
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 71 | Number 2 | August 1979 | Pages 164-169
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE79-A20407
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A series of experiments was performed to determine the effect of soluble neutron absorbers on the criticality of water-moderated latticed assemblies. The soluble absorbers used were boron, gadolinium, and cadmium. These materials were mixed with the moderator and reflector of lattices of 4.3-wt%-235U-enriched UO2 fuel pins with stainless-steel cladding. Lattice spacings of 22.9, 27.9, and 33.0 mm, center-to-center, were measured to determine the critical number of rods. The value of keff was computed for each assembly on which criticality was determined. The computed keff value were up to ∼2% above unity in some cases, with the average value for the entire series being 1.007.