VALAR WATCH
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374 facts · 512 sources · updated 2026-09-30

Fact fund-015

newrecordconfirmed Public money built and bought the lab Valar now uses: about $15M in grants, then a $2M state purchase
2020-10 · fund-015 · Utah San Rafael Energy Lab, Emery County, Utah Permanent Community Impact Fund Board, Utah Office of Energy Development, Utah Legislature · CIB infrastructure grant to Emery County for the research center (Oct 2020): $7,000,000; CIB loan at 0.5% (Oct 2020): $491,000; approximate total grants to build and equip the center (Emery County account published by ETV, May 2022): $15,000,000; state appropriation to buy the lab (2024 H.B. 410): $2,000,000; yearly amount shifted into the Utah Energy Research Fund (H.B. 410 5th Sub. fiscal note): $1,000,000; estimated yearly cost of a lab director (H.B. 410 fiscal note): $245,000

Before Valar arrived, public money built the San Rafael Energy Research Center near Orangeville. In October 2020 Emery County won a $7 million infrastructure grant and a $491,000 loan at 0.5% from the state's Community Impact Board, for a coal pulverizer for coal gasification, carbon fiber and hydrogen fuel research, and a molten salt/thorium laboratory (ETV, 9 Oct 2020; another ETV story that month puts the package at $7.5 million). A May 2022 account by the county, published by ETV News, says about $15 million in grants had been awarded to build, renovate and equip the center; it names research projects funded by the federal EDA and DOE and lists the Impact Board, the Legislature and state offices among its government funders, without itemizing the total. The fiscal note on the fifth substitute of 2024 H.B. 410 says the bill appropriates $2,000,000 one-time for the state Office of Energy Development to buy the lab and shifts $1,000,000 a year from an existing state research-grant line into a new Utah Energy Research Fund for the lab and grants; it also estimates $245,000 a year for a lab director, which the office could absorb (the enacted bill is in gov-016). Emery County approved the sale to the state for $2,111,444 in November 2024 (gov-021). The state's May 2025 MOU has the energy office provide the site, infrastructure and shared facilities for Valar's test (gov-011). The terms on which Valar uses the state's site (rent, reimbursement, restoration money) are not public (open question), though the state board discussed 'the project's private funding' and financial assurance when it approved the project (gov-013).

In plain termsThe lab where Valar's reactor sits was built with about $15 million of public grants for coal, molten-salt and other energy research, and the state then bought it for about $2 million in 2024 and budgets for a lab director. Valar's test reactor now uses that public site and its shared facilities. What, if anything, Valar pays the state for using it has not been made public.
verified 2026-09-29: Re-verified 2026-09-29: three ETV stories and the H.B. 410 fiscal note re-read; quotes exact. The May 2022 account does not itemize the $15M (EDA and DOE are named for research projects): reworded; the fiscal note is of the 5th substitute; an unsourced 'roughly 11-acre allotment' was removed.

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