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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.
D. C. Larson
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 78 | Number 4 | August 1981 | Pages 324-332
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE81-A21366
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The 23Na(n,2n) reaction produces the radioactive product 22Na, with a half-life of 2.61 years. For sodium-containing systems this reaction can result in a radioactive contamination problem. Currently available experimental cross sections for this reaction are in strong conflict. Comprehensive nuclear model calculations performed as part of the sodium evaluation for ENDF/B-V are in agreement with one of the experimental data sets. Acceptance of this data set results in an (n,2n) cross section larger than was given in ENDF/B-IV by ∼37% at 15 MeV and by as much as a factor of 4 at 20 MeV.