KUTV (published May 28, 2025, from an interview the governor gave that week or the week before) reported Governor Spencer Cox's first account of the Valar arrangement: a memorandum of understanding letting Valar use the San Rafael Energy Research Center; a test reactor that would lead to energy production over the next ten years; a cost to the state of 'virtually nothing', with Utah just providing space and infrastructure; and safety assured by working with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission through planning, building and implementation. KUTV reported the reactor would not produce any energy, and that it had filed records requests for the MOU. In July 2025 the director of the Utah Office of Energy Development told the Utah Investigative Journalism Project the MOU was non-binding, that there was not yet a commitment, and that Valar would still have to follow all federal licensing rules. Set beside the later record: Ward 250 was authorized by DOE alone, with no NRC license planned (safe-001); Valar says, and Deseret News reported, that it generated electricity at the site on July 1, 2026 (orig-013, orig-042); the lab is state-owned and Valar is its tenant (mine-035); and the state approved up to $106.7 million in post-performance tax credits for Valar in July 2026 (csite-024). The oversight the governor described in 2025 was not the path the reactor took.

• Utah's new 'advanced' nuclear reactor for research, won't produce energy (KUTV 2News, 2025-05-28) news “just providing the space and infrastructure”
• Who is Valar Atomics? (Eric Peterson, with Utah News Dispatch) (The Utah Investigative Journalism Project, 2025-07-08) news “Just because we have that MOU, there’s still not a commitment at the moment”