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August 24–27, 2026
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.
K. F. Schoepf, A. A. Harms
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 71 | Number 2 | August 1979 | Pages 170-181
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE79-A20408
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A nuclear energy concept based on the integrated operation of a beam-driven hybrid fusion reactor and a companion fission reactor is investigated. The fuel for the fusion component is taken to be only deuterium, while the fissile fuel consists of the plentiful fertile nuclei 232Th or 238U. The different system features associated with various deuterium cycles are examined, and parametric reactor physics constraint relationships are established. It is concluded that the synergetic fusion-fission energy system described here displays very favorable energetic characteristics and, in addition, possesses the feature of total self-sufficiency with respect to fissile fuel supply.