Huff: Research reactors historically take roughly two years from concrete to criticality
Katie Huff · The path to market for new nuclear reactors · Feb 5, 2026 · at 22:27
Former Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Energy Katie Huff explains the historical development timeline for research reactors, citing research from Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
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“In fact, in the history of building research reactors, the kind of median time for how long it takes from pouring concrete to getting to that hot, hot, full power criticality is much longer. It's two years or so, right? And there's a nice report out of Oak Ridge by Gail Hawk and others that kind of goes through that history, but You know, even if you include the Wild West days when they're, you know, pre-NRC when everything was Atomic Energy Commission, you know, it took years from, Concrete to criticality when you're thinking about things in terms of that real criticality.”
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