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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.
Tsung-Kuang Yeh, Digby D. Macdonald
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 123 | Number 2 | June 1996 | Pages 295-304
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE96-A24191
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The DAMAGE-PREDICTOR computer code, which has the capability of simultaneously estimating the concentrations of radiolysis species, the electrochemical corrosion potential (ECP), and the crack growth rate (CGR) of a reference crack in sensitized Type 304 stainless steel, is used to evaluate the responses of the Dresden-2 and Duane Arnold boiling water reactors (BWRs) to hydrogen water chemistry (HWC). The HWC simulations for these two BWRs are carried out for feedwater hydrogen concentrations ([H2]FW) ranging from 0.0 to 2.0 parts per million (ppm). Results such as species concentrations (H2, O2, H2O2, etc.), ECP, and CGR are predicted for various components in the heat transport circuits (HTCs) of the two reactors. It is found that while 1.3 ppm of feedwater hydrogen is needed to protect part of the lower downcomer, the recirculation system, and the lower plenum in Dresden-2 from intergranular stress corrosion cracking, only 0.3 ppm is needed to achieve the same goal in Duane Arnold. However, it is also found that the ECP in many regions (core channel, core bypass, upper plenum, downcomer, etc.) in the HTCs cannot be lowered to below the critical corrosion potential of -0.23 VSHE for sensitized Type 304 stainless steels, even when [H2]FW is as high as 2.0 ppm.