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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.
P. Michelato, E. Cavaliere, C. Pagani, E. Bari, A. Bonucci
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 157 | Number 1 | September 2007 | Pages 95-109
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE07-A2715
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
In recent years the research on nuclear power generation focused on an innovative subcritical reactor concept, along with previous liquid-metal-cooled critical reactors. The accelerator-driven system reactor design matches higher and intrinsic safety requirements with the reduction of actinides and long-lived fission products, encumbrances on the nuclear waste final repository. The coupling of the accelerator technology with the reactor facility faces new challenges; the first is the design of the interface between accelerator and reactor. Currently two solutions are proposed and investigated: one with a solid beam-target window interface and the other one without a beam window. Our speculations focus on the windowless approach: No physical barrier is located in the interface region, so the ultrahigh vacuum environment of the accelerator is connected with the operative conditions of the reactor through an intermediate spallation target. In this work we describe our experimental activities and the numerical tool employed to give a basic characterization of the vacuum dynamics for a windowless interface, with particular regard given to proton beamline and target interface of the Ansaldo A80-XADS reference design.