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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.
Raymond E. Alcouffe
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 56 | Number 4 | April 1975 | Pages 321-339
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE75-A26680
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
We introduce a generalization of the neutron diffusion equation, the solution of which is an accurate approximation to the transport scalar Flux. In this generalization we utilize auxiliary transport calculations of the system of interest to compute an accurate, pointwise diffusion coefficient. We have specified a procedure to generate and improve this auxiliary information in a systematic way, leading to improvement in the calculated diffusion scalar flux. This improvement is shown to be contingent upon satisfying the condition of positive calculated-diffusion coefficients, and we present an algorithm that ensures this positivity. Our generalized diffusion theory is also shown to be compatible with conventional diffusion theory in the sense that the same methods and codes can be used to calculate a solution for both. The accuracy of the method compared to reference SN transport calculations is demonstrated for a wide variety of examples.