Valar Watch · Fact fund-020

Fact fund-020

newanalysisconfirmed Timelines told to investors and the public, checked: the July 4 goal held; the Philippine reactor has not been built

2026-09-29 · fund-020 · Valar Atomics, U.S. Department of Energy

Holds: DOE's July 2026 target and Valar's own October 2025 milestone table ('Initial Criticality 06/30/2026') were met when Ward 250 went critical on 18 June 2026 (orig-010); Valar's homepage promise to 'go live before America's 250th birthday on July 4th, 2026' is met for criticality. Partly: tech press in November 2025 carried the company's line that it was 'on track to demonstrate 100 kilowatts of thermal energy by July 4'; Valar says it reached full power within days, but DOE confirmed only zero-power criticality and no independent record of the power reached is public (orig-013). The same milestone table planned to submit the final safety analysis on 6 January 2026 for a 45-day review; POWER, citing Valar's posts, reports DOE approved it on 23 April 2026 (safe-006), later than planned but before criticality. Has not happened: the Philippine pilot (the February 2025 funding coverage reported a contract to pilot a test reactor and build two full-scale reactors there) had no reactor built as of the latest report read, April 2026 (fund-003, orig-064); the Emery gas-fired supercritical-CO2 heater Valar asked to finish by June 2026 has had only a design phase approved (gov-014). Too early to judge: 'commercial deployment by 2028' (July 2025 town hall, orig-045); 275 jobs and $1.3 billion invested in Emery (fund-017); fleet production of 'thousands of reactors' (Series B post). Changed: the plan described to residents as a 12-month test in a temporary facility became a permanent fuel-and-reactor base and a Carbon County campus (mine-019).

In plain termsValar hit its biggest public deadline: its test reactor started a chain reaction before July 4, 2026, as promised. Other promises have slipped or changed: a reactor in the Philippines announced in early 2025 had not been built as of the latest report, and a one-year 'test' in Emery County has grown into plans for a permanent fuel plant and a large campus in Carbon County. Promises about 2028 and mass production are still in the future.

Ward250 Nuclear Safety Design Agreement, No. 100403, Rev. 02, Appendix B: Table 7 Project Milestones (Valar Atomics (Public Documents), 2025-10) primary company “Initial Criticality 06/30/2026”
Valar Atomics (homepage) (Valar Atomics) primary company “go live before America's 250th birthday on July 4th, 2026”
Valar Atomics, a nuclear startup backed by Palmer Luckey and Palantir CTO, raises $130M to build thousands of advanced reactors (Daniel Levi) (Tech Startups, 2025-11-10) news “on track to demonstrate 100 kilowatts of thermal energy by July 4”
Valar Atomics comes out of stealth with $19M and a pilot reactor site (Mike Butcher) (TechCrunch, 2025-02-20) news “build two full-scale reactors before the first integrated reactor comes online”
Announcing our $1B Series B Led By Sequoia (Isaiah Taylor) (Valar Atomics, 2026-08-04) primary company “Thousands of reactors clustered strategically throughout the nation”

verified 2026-09-29: Re-verified 2026-09-29: NSDA Table 7, Valar homepage, Tech Startups, TechCrunch and the Series B post re-read; quotes exact. January 2026 was the planned DSA submittal, not approval; the approval date is POWER's, citing Valar; 'investors were told' changed to the press coverage.

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