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Launching into tomorrow: NRIC guides new era of research and deployment
In June 2025, the Department of Energy announced the Reactor Pilot Program, an authorization pathway that allowed reactor developers to partner with the DOE to get first-of-a-kind (FOAK) reactors built and tested. Soon after, the DOE rolled out a complementary Fuel Line Pilot Program, which aimed to fast-track fuel projects. In all, 20 projects were accepted into the new programs.
Yuji Ishiguro
Nuclear Technology | Volume 61 | Number 1 | April 1983 | Pages 121-126
Technical Note | Fuel Cycle | doi.org/10.13182/NT83-A33150
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A new concept of fueling a liquid-metal fast breeder reactor (LMFBR) is proposed with the aims of increasing the resource base of nuclear energy for the generation of electricity and of resolving the safety question of current LMFBRs. The basic feature of the concept is the use of 233U/Th fuel in a central part of the LMFBR core and Pu/U fuel in the outer core. The reactor is flexible in its utilization of nuclear fuels and can be an efficient breeder reactor with either the uranium or the thorium cycle. The safety characteristics of the reactor are superior to those of plutonium-fueled LMFBRs of current designs with the sodium-void reactivities being negative almost everywhere in the core. The design and thermal characteristics of the proposed pins indicate that in the 233U/Th-fueled inner core, thick soft-spectrum pins can be advantageous over solid pins of a more conventional type.