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August 24–27, 2026
Dallas, TX|Hilton Anatole
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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.
C. O. Slater, F. J. Muckenthaler, D. T. Ingersoll
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 97 | Number 2 | October 1987 | Pages 123-144
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE87-A27460
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The analysis of an Oak Ridge National Laboratory Tower Shielding Facility (TSF) experiment in which measurements were made of neutrons streaming through a mockup of a section of the lower core support structure of a large-scale high-temperature gas-cooled reactor (HTGR) design concept is described. The analysis was performed with the same calculational methods used for an analysis of the HTGR design itself, the purpose of the experiment being to provide data against which the validity of the calculational methods could be tested. Also summarized are the HTGR design calculation results; how they affected the design and objectives of the TSF experiment is described. Comparisons of the neutron detector responses observed in the experiment with calculated responses showed satisfactory agreement in most cases, and the implications of these results for the HTGR shield design are highlighted. Among other conclusions, it was determined that 1. the calculational methods are adequate 2. neutron streaming through the HTGR core support structure is predicted reasonably well 3. thermal neutron fluence levels at the HTGR lower plenum side wall are probably overestimated by at most a factor of 2.3.