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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.
Yu. V. Petrov, A. I. Shlyakhter
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 77 | Number 2 | February 1981 | Pages 157-167
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE81-A21350
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
An estimate of the cross sections of nuclear reactions with thermal neutrons in terms of the average parameters of the target nucleus (the strength function, the average level spacing, and the average reaction width) is obtained. The probability distributions for the ratios of actual thermal neutron cross sections to their estimated values are introduced. These functions can be calculated from the statistical model. They are calculated for neutron radiative capture and for inelastic neutron acceleration by the isomeric nuclei [as well as the (n, α) reaction, etc.]. Using these results, one can predict the probability of finding the actual thermal neutron cross section in a given interval.