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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.
Firooz Rufeh, Donald R. Olander and Thomas H. Pigford
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 23 | Number 4 | December 1965 | Pages 335-338
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE65-A21069
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A high-pressure furnace that operates up to 2000°C in the pressure range of 100 atm to 10−5 torr was designed and constructed to saturate UO2 powder of 4-µm average particle size with 4He. The powder was then dissolved in a fused salt in an induction chamber. The released 4He was mixed with a known quantity of 3He, and the mixture was analyzed with a mass spectrometer to determine the 4He: 3He ratio, hence the original mass of 4He in the sample. The solubility of He in UO2 at 1200 and 1300°C was found to be 6.71 × 10−4 and 3.23 × 10−4 cm3 (STP)/(g atm), respectively. It was also found that the He-UO2 system obeys Henry's law. From a plot of He concentration as a function of time, the diffusion coefficient at 1200 °C was estimated to be 1.5 × 10−13 cm2/sec.