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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.
H. B. Choi, T. J. Downar
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 111 | Number 2 | June 1992 | Pages 205-213
Technical Note | doi.org/10.13182/NSE92-A23934
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Depletion perturbation theory has been extended to the closed nuclear fuel cycle, and methods have been developed for computing the constrained sensitivities that account for fuel reprocessing and fabrication. An iterative method was developed to solve the sensitivity equations and applied to the closed fuel cycle of the Integral Fast Reactor (IFR). The sensitivities computed using the method were in good agreement with sensitivities from direct subtraction of perturbed and unperturbed depletion calculations. The closed fuel cycle sensitivities were also compared with the sensitivities for the open fuel cycle without reprocessing. The closed fuel cycle sensitivities were found to be larger, particularly for isotopes higher up the burnup chain. These results indicate this work would have particular importance for the analysis of advanced reactor designs with closed fuel cycles, such as the IFR. The methods developed here will facilitate accurate and efficient sensitivity studies of such reactors.