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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.
S. Tassan
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 26 | Number 2 | October 1966 | Pages 271-276
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE66-A28169
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Thermal spectrum measurements in 1% enriched uranium, 0.387-in. diam rod lattices, light water moderated, have been performed by the lutetium activation method in order to test the usefulness of this technique in not-well-thermalized lattices. Dysprosium-164 and 175Lu were used as reference thermal-neutron detectors. The experimental results are presented as the average values of the normalized (lattice/Maxwellian) activation ratios of 176Lu/Dy and 176Lu/ 175Lu with the pertinent cadmium-ratios, in the fuel and in the moderator over the H2O/U range from 1:1 to 4:1. The agreement with the results of a calculation performed using the THERMOS code is satisfactory. It is concluded that the 176Lu/Dy set appears to be adequate for the thermal spectrum analysis of light-water-moderated lattices, while the 175Lu/Dy set can provide rather accurate integral data for the epithermal component of the neutron spectrum.