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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. R. Richey, J. D. White, E. D. Clayton, R. C. Lloyd
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 23 | Number 2 | October 1965 | Pages 150-158
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE65-A28139
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Critical experiments were conducted with homogeneous mixtures of PuO2 - polystyrene (H:Pu atomic ratio of 15) containing both 2.2 and 8.0% Pu240. Criticality was determined for a series of Plexiglas reflected rectangular prisms ranging from near cubes, to long columns, and to thin slabs; bare arrays of near-cubic geometry were also studied. Critical thicknesses were 16.09 ± 0.41 and 5.99 ± 0.10 cm, respectively, for the bare and reflected infinite slabs of PuO2-polystyrene containing 2.2% Pu240. Corresponding values for the 8.0% Pu240 mixtures were 18.48 ± 0.41 and 7.38 ± 0.09 cm. The infinite slab thicknesses for an equivalent Pu239-water mixture (H:Pu = 15, ρ = 1.62 g Pu/cm3) were 11.66 ± 0.30 and 4.38 ± 0.08 cm, respectively, for the bare and water-reflected slabs. Corresponding critical radii for infinitely long cylinders were 10.52 ± 0.16 and 6.54 ± 0.14 cm; radii for critical spheres were 13.81 ± 0.16 and 10.40 ± 0.17 cm.