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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.
Paul Michael
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 8 | Number 5 | November 1960 | Pages 426-431
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE60-A25824
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The steady-state space-energy distribution of thermal neutrons in homogeneous media is considered in the diffusion approximation. From the general form of the solution it is shown that the asymptotic (in space) distribution depends upon the source distribution and under different circumstances can be qualitatively different. The relation of the asymptotic flux to the usually found infinite medium spectrum is exhibited. For a heavy gas moderator the asymptotic flux from a source of limited extent is shown to be much softer than an infinite medium spectrum in the same material.