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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.
Pavel M. Bokov, Danas Ridikas, Igor Slessarev, Oliver Köberl
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 151 | Number 3 | November 2005 | Pages 335-343
Technical Note | doi.org/10.13182/NSE05-A2552
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Core subcriticality can play an important role if the safety enhancement of a nuclear system is necessary, in particular, when minor actinides submitted for transmutation cause essential degradation of the reactivity feedback effects or/and significant reduction of the delayed neutron fraction. The present work shows that core subcriticality together with thermohydraulics optimization can compensate for the possible degradation of the Doppler effect and the reduction of the delayed neutron fraction. The particular dependence of the spallation neutron yield allows the creation of a supplementary negative feedback effect in case of accelerator coupled hybrid systems. A number of quantitative examples are provided in this context.