VALAR WATCH
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Fact gov-015

newrecordconfirmed Governor's office: 'Operation Gigawatt' names nuclear; no Valar release; state records date the groundbreaking Sept 11
2025-09-11 · gov-015 · Spencer Cox, Office of the Governor of Utah, Valar Atomics, Idaho National Laboratory

Gov. Spencer Cox launched 'Operation Gigawatt' on 8 October 2024, a plan to double Utah's power production in ten years, one of whose four goals is policies 'to enable clean, reliable energy like nuclear and geothermal'; his January 2026 update credits it with 'breaking ground on a nuclear test reactor'. A search of the governor's website (WordPress search API, 29 Sept 2026) for 'Valar' returns a single item: his public schedule for 8-14 September 2025, which lists '10:00 a.m. Speak at Valar Atomics groundbreaking', San Rafael Energy Research Center, Orangeville, on a Thursday. That schedule's day labels do not match its own title (it heads the week 'Sept. 8 - Sept. 14' but labels the days Sept. 8, 2, 3, 4 and 5), so the schedule alone does not fix the date; the Thursday of the titled week was 11 September. The Office of Energy Development's written update to the Legislature's Public Utilities, Energy and Technology Interim Committee (15 October 2025) states that Valar 'held groundbreaking for a nuclear test reactor on September 11, 2025', which matches the state release's 9/11-anniversary line; Valar's Ward 250 page gives 09.17.2025, the day the release was published (orig-007, orig-067). On the state's records, 11 September 2025 is the date; Valar's date does not match. The governor first described the Valar deal publicly on Bloomberg TV and to KUTV in May 2025 (ppl-018, orig-065); no governor's press release, executive order or signed agreement naming Valar was found on governor.utah.gov. On 28 April 2025 Utah leaders signed an MOU with Idaho National Laboratory that envisions a new Utah Advanced Nuclear and Energy Institute as a hub linking INL, the state's universities, OED and the San Rafael lab.

In plain termsThe governor's energy plan, 'Operation Gigawatt', is the umbrella for Utah's nuclear push, and he was scheduled to speak at Valar's groundbreaking. But no news release from his office naming Valar was found: the only mention found on his website is a line in his weekly schedule. The state energy office's report to legislators dates the groundbreaking to September 11, 2025; Valar's own page says September 17. It is a small discrepancy, but it shows the company's public timeline is not always the record's.
verified 2026-09-29: Re-read the Gigawatt release, the schedule, the WP search (1 result), the Built Here update, the INL MOU release and OED's 15 Oct 2025 slides 2026-09-29. Fixed: the INL MOU 'envisions' an institute linking the lab (it does not make the lab part of it); the schedule's mislabelled days mean it cannot fix the date on its own; plain says 'no release found' rather than 'never issued'.

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