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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.
Mark T. Robinson
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 4 | Number 3 | September 1958 | Pages 270-287
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE58-A25528
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A simple phenomenological theory is presented to describe the xenon poisoning of a molten fluoride fueled nuclear reactor which is sparged with a suitable inert gas. The extension of the theory to removal of other fission product species is indicated. The theory is illustrated by a parametric study. It is found that arbitrarily low levels of Xe135 can be achieved by adequate sparging of the fuel. Such sparging also frees these reactors from the trouble-some rise of the xenon poisoning during shutdowns. No reactivity transients of a serious nature are likely to result from changes in the rates of the xenon removal processes.