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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.
Kevin R. Robb, Matthew W. Francis, Larry J. Ott
Nuclear Technology | Volume 186 | Number 2 | May 2014 | Pages 145-160
Technical Paper | Reactor Safety | doi.org/10.13182/NT13-43
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
During the emergency response period of the accidents that took place at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant (NPP) in March of 2011, researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) conducted a number of studies using the MELCOR code to help understand what was occurring and what had occurred. During the postaccident period, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) jointly sponsored a study of the Fukushima Daiichi NPP accident with collaboration among ORNL, Sandia National Laboratories, and Idaho National Laboratory. The purpose of the study was to compile relevant data, reconstruct the accident progression using computer codes, assess the codes' predictive capabilities, and identify future data needs. The current paper summarizes some of the early MELCOR simulations and analyses conducted at ORNL of the Fukushima Daiichi NPP Unit 3 (1F3) accident. Extended analysis and discussion of the 1F3 accident are also presented taking into account new knowledge and modeling refinements made since the joint DOE-NRC study.