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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.
Lei Zhu, Jim E. Morel
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 164 | Number 3 | March 2010 | Pages 205-220
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE08-67
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
We derive three new linear-discontinuous least-squares discretizations for the Sn equations in one-dimensional slab geometry. Standard least-squares methods are not compatible with discontinuous trial spaces, and they are also generally not conservative. Our new methods are unique in that they are based upon a least-squares minimization principle, use a discontinuous trial space, are conservative, and retain the structure of standard Sn spatial discretization schemes. To our knowledge, conservative least-squares spatial discretization schemes have not previously been developed for the Sn equations. We compare our new methods both theoretically and numerically to the linear-discontinuous Galerkin method and the lumped linear-discontinuous Galerkin method. We find that one of our schemes is clearly superior to the other two and offers certain advantages over both of the Galerkin schemes.