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August 24–27, 2026
Dallas, TX|Hilton Anatole
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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.
G. Flamenbaum, A. Zaetta, M. Martini, M. Michenot, T. Newton, H. Sztark
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 106 | Number 1 | September 1990 | Pages 64-68
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE90-A23758
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Several experiments on Superphénix are used to compare calculations and measurements for various control rod configurations that show salient spatial effects: 1. “local criticality” configurations (i.e., in a subcritical reactor with all rods inserted, adjacent control rods are successively withdrawn up to criticality) 2. criticality achieved with one control rod curtain up and the other remaining fully inserted 3. “handling error” configurations (i.e., all rods inserted except one, which is supposed to be replaced by a fuel subassembly). These experiments and their analysis are described. The calculation-to-experiment comparison shows a good agreement.