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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.
John O. Mingle
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 15 | Number 2 | February 1963 | Pages 161-165
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE63-A26416
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The normal calculations of disadvantage factors in slab geometry are performed with the odd-order spherical harmonics approximations; however, by the use of the complementary even-order results in conjunction with these standard solutions, a more accurate answer can be quickly obtained. Since the even-order approximations give an apparent upper bound on the true answer, a combination of low odd and even-order solutions produces a counterconvergence effect which closely brackets the true disadvantage factor. In particular the theory of the P4 calculation is presented along with various numerical parameter studies.