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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.
J. P. Marcon, H. Sztark
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 100 | Number 4 | December 1988 | Pages 490-495
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE88-A23582
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The Superphénix-2 (SPX-2) core is presented with an explanation of the choice of the main options. The SPX-2 core delivers a total power 20% higher than SPX-1 in a reactor vessel of almost the same size, including internal storage of the burned fuel, which is specific to SPX-2. This leads to a drastic reduction in the capital cost of the reactor, which is accompanied by a strong reduction in the cycle cost due to improvements in the fuel burnup. Some specific core problems are described, such as shutdown requirements for control rods, fuel management, start-up core, and core monitoring systems, where the increased burnup and the simplified overall reactor design require modifications from SPX-1.