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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.
Rajesh Mohan, Feroz Ahmed, L. S. Kothari
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 81 | Number 4 | August 1982 | Pages 532-539
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE82-A21443
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The multigroup diffusion equation is solved for the pulsed problem and the time-dependent energy spectra are obtained using the eigenfunction expansion method. It is shown that complete spectral equilibrium can be obtained beyond 2000 ns in a 40-cm cube (B2 ∼ 0.015 cm-2) of natural uranium. This time is found to increase with increasing assembly size. The earlier exponential decays observed in a pulsed uranium system are traced to the establishment of the pseudo-equilibrium condition due to the trapping of neutrons in certain energy groups. It is shown that such a pseudo-decay corresponds to the establishment of the first higher mode of decay and the time range in which it is established is a function of B2.