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

Fact ppl-025

newcompany claimreported July 2025 town hall, after the site was picked: Taylor answered a Chernobyl worry with coal deaths
2025-07-08 · ppl-025 · Isaiah Taylor, Max Ukropina, Valar Atomics, Emery County

The New Republic (May 2026), from the audio recording of Valar's 8 July 2025 town hall in Castle Dale (see orig-045), reports: by then the site was picked and construction moving; when a resident asked if the reactor had run, head of projects Max Ukropina said 'We had it on since February. On and off, in different ways', which referred to the non-nuclear thermal prototype, and the resident concluded the reactor was technically untested; Taylor said Valar was 'hesitant to be the company that comes in and promises the world'; and when a resident raised Chernobyl and said the town did not want to be part of a race with China, Taylor asked how many people had died in the coal industry in Carbon and Emery counties and said 'the deaths are terrible, but power is important.' The magazine describes the residents as having had 'very little say'. The town hall itself was requested by Valar after the state MOU (orig-045); the state lab director says the contract followed about two weeks after Valar first said it wanted to build there (ppl-027). Residents who spoke are described, not named.

In plain termsAt a July 2025 town hall Valar held in Emery County, after the site had been picked, residents asked safety questions. The company's answer on testing referred to a prototype without nuclear fuel, and its chief executive answered a question about nuclear accidents by pointing to coal-mining deaths. As The New Republic put it, the residents had had very little say in the choice.
verified 2026-09-29: Re-read TNR (delivered part, which ends with this passage). Holds. Fixed: plain called it 'the one big public meeting before construction', but TNR says construction was already moving forward and no source shows it was the only meeting; 'real safety questions' reduced to 'safety questions'. Residents are described, not named.

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