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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.
Ian R. Terry
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 113 | Number 3 | March 1993 | Pages 282-285
Technical Note | doi.org/10.13182/NSE93-A24496
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The problem of determining neutron yield from the (α, n) reaction has been the subject of much investigation, mainly experimental, for a number of years. Calculated values depend on cross sections and other nuclear data, which are not available for all isotopes. As a compromise, using the experimental data as a basis, an expression has been derived to provide a simple computation of the neutron yield in any given mixture containing actinides. This has been successfully tested with known (α,n) neutron source strengths in compounds of plutonium.