Regulatory status
Use the regulator or governing authority. A proposed rule is labeled proposed; construction authorization is not commercial operation; a roadmap target is not a delivered plant.
Controlled vocabulary
Publication maturity labels
These labels are evidence categories for public communication. They are not numerical technology-readiness levels and do not replace design-specific licensing or safety findings.
| Label | Publication meaning |
|---|---|
| Commercial Operation | Technology family represented by operating commercial electricity-generating reactors; design- and jurisdiction-specific licensing still governs each plant. |
| Limited / Specialized Operation | Technology has operating examples or operational heritage, but deployment is limited, specialized, or not a broad commercial power fleet. |
| Construction / First-of-a-Kind | A current project has entered construction or equivalent first-of-a-kind implementation, while broad fleet maturity remains unproven. |
| Demonstration / Licensing | Technology is in demonstration, test, licensing, or pre-commercial deployment rather than broad commercial operation. |
| Research & Development | Technology remains primarily in experimental, engineering-development, or research programs. |
| Historical Research | Technology was materially investigated in historical programs but is not presented as a current deployment pathway. |
| Conceptual Future Study | Aurora or external future-study material that is explicitly conceptual and not presented as demonstrated or licensable technology. |
| Mixed / Design-Dependent Maturity | The page groups multiple technologies, designs, or subsystems whose maturity differs; no single readiness label is valid for the whole category. |
Terminology lock
Terms that must remain consistent
These rules prevent common category errors and marketing-style overclaims. The full definitions remain in the master glossary.
| Preferred term | Publication rule | Avoid / qualify |
|---|---|---|
| reactor family | Preferred for a broad technology class such as PWR, BWR, SFR, or MSR. | Avoid implying every design in the family has identical performance, safety, or maturity. |
| SMR | Small modular reactor: a size/deployment class, not one coolant, fuel, or neutron-spectrum architecture. | Do not treat SMR as a single reactor-physics family. |
| microreactor | A very small reactor deployment class; exact regulatory and technical boundaries are jurisdiction- and design-specific. | Do not use as a synonym for TRISO or transportable reactor. |
| TRISO fuel | Coated-particle fuel form. | Do not describe TRISO itself as a reactor architecture. |
| molten-salt reactor | A family in which salt is central to heat transport and, in some concepts, also contains fuel. | Distinguish fuel-salt concepts from solid-fuel salt-cooled reactors. |
| fusion machine | Use for the U.S. regulatory category when discussing NRC fusion-machine rulemaking. | Do not automatically call every fusion experiment a commercial reactor or power plant. |
| fusion power plant | Reserve for an integrated system intended to produce useful power, including heat extraction and balance of plant. | Do not equate plasma gain or target gain with net-electric plant performance. |
| commercial operation | Use only for operating commercial service supported by authoritative evidence. | Do not substitute roadmap targets, licensing activity, construction, or demonstration. |
| demonstration | Use for a system intended to prove integrated technology or mission capability before broad commercial deployment. | Do not use as a synonym for commercial fleet. |
| first-of-a-kind (FOAK) | The first implementation of a design or class under a defined deployment context. | Do not imply follow-on economics or schedule are already demonstrated. |
| concept rendering | Illustrative visual communication, not a design drawing, safety analysis, or licensing basis. | All AI or conceptual images must remain subordinate to page text. |
| maturity classification | Publication-facing evidence category defined by this Phase 6 authority. | Do not infer a technology-readiness level number unless a source explicitly supplies one. |
| passive safety | A function relying primarily on inherent physical behavior or stored energy rather than continuous active power or control. | Do not use “inherently safe” as a blanket claim. |
| safeguards | Use in the appropriate NRC/IAEA context for nuclear material control/accounting and nonproliferation obligations. | Do not publish protected safeguards information or operational security detail. |
| HALEU | High-assay low-enriched uranium: above 5% and below 20% U-235. | Do not state that every advanced reactor requires HALEU. |
Source hierarchy
Primary publication authorities
Regulatory and government sources control regulatory status, licensing terminology, operating-fleet claims, environmental review, safeguards, and current program status. International programs and research institutions supplement technology context.
Evidence discipline
How claims are controlled
Machine-readable release controls
Phase 6 registers
The release includes CSV registers for source traceability and locked terminology, plus a branch sitemap, QA report, file manifest, and SHA-256 checksum ledger.
Phase 7 • Release Certification & Production Integration
Release certification
This page has passed the Reactor Programs Phase 7 branch-level release review for internal routing, asset references, canonical metadata, maturity and terminology controls, source-authority links, accessibility essentials, responsive markup, and release traceability.
Production boundary: this certification covers the Reactor Programs branch package. Parent-site shared CSS, navigation, search, logo, and global assets remain controlled by the Aurora website root and must already exist in production. Live deployment is not implied until the package is uploaded and the production URLs are rechecked.