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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.
J. R. L. de Ladonchamps, L. M. Grossman
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 12 | Number 2 | February 1962 | Pages 238-242
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE62-A26063
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The space energy distribution of neutrons diffusing in a source-free, nonabsorbing medium possessing a temperature gradient is obtained by solving the appropriate Boltzmann equation to a second order approximation using the expansion technique of Chapman and Enskog. The medium is assumed to possess a locally Maxwellian energy distribution and the neutron scattering is taken to be isotropic in the laboratory system of coordinates. It is found that the neutron current is increased in the direction of a negative temperature gradient and the “thermal diffusion” transport coefficient is evaluated as a function of the mass of the moderator nuclei. For the case of infinite mass nuclei, the results correspond to the kinetic theory model of a Knudsen gas in a binary Lorentzian gas mixture. An analysis of the results is carried out in the framework of the thermodynamic theory of coupled irreversible processes.