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

Plans & Sites

Every site and plan, and promised vs delivered timelines.

newanalysisconfirmed Revenue: an investor projected $1B a year per 100 reactors from fuels; no sale, customer or revenue is on record
2026-09-29 · fund-019 · Valar Atomics, Contrary Research, NVIDIA, Sacra · projected yearly revenue per 100 reactors from synthetic fuels (Contrary Research, an investor): $1,000,000,000; revenue disclosed by Valar as of 2026-09-29 (none published): $0

What investors and the public were told: Contrary Research, itself an investor, published a November 2025 profile quoting an unnamed Valar investor who said Valar could produce about '$1 billion of revenue annually per 100 reactors' on a gigasite from synthetic-fuel sales, and $10 billion or more a year from a 1,000-reactor gigasite; Contrary adds that the company believes it can make synthetic fuels at prices matching or beating fossil fuels without carbon subsidies, while its own risk list calls synthetic-fuel economics and mass reactor production unproven (orig-024). Valar's homepage says its 'products create the cashflow' to drive manufacturing, and Sequoia's page says Valar 'sells power rather than reactors'. The state tax-credit file describes gigasites powering data centers, hydrogen and synthetic fuels (fund-017). What the record shows as of 29 Sept 2026: no revenue figure, customer contract or power-purchase agreement has been published by Valar or any buyer; the Series B post (Aug 2026) names investors, lenders and a 'collaboration' with NVIDIA, but no customer; the NVIDIA announcement of 1 July 2026 was, as reported by the Deseret News, a collaboration to 'explore' a 30 MW data center, with no money or timeline stated (orig-042); at the state board in July, a Valar executive said no one has yet sold power from an advanced reactor in America and that its near-term plan is premium 'behind-the-meter' customers (gov-033); Sacra, a research firm, says Valar 'needs an anchor customer'. DOE's legal basis for Ward 250 is that it does not produce commercial power (safe-030), and the Deseret News notes that the NRC must license Valar's reactor before it can generate power commercially, so Ward 250 is not a source of power sales. No hydrogen or synthetic fuel production is on record (orig-063). The public emphasis has shifted toward AI power (Series B post, NVIDIA event), though the homepage still leads with industrial power and hydrocarbon fuels (orig-063).

In plain termsA Valar investor, quoted in a profile published by another investor, said a big Valar site could one day earn billions of dollars a year selling synthetic fuels. So far there is no sign of any sales: no revenue, no signed customer contract, no power-purchase deal made public. The much-publicized NVIDIA tie is an agreement to explore a data center, not a purchase. That is normal for a startup still testing its first reactor, but it means the valuation rests on future plans, not on income.
verified 2026-09-29: Re-verified 2026-09-29: Contrary, Valar homepage, Series B post, KSL/Deseret, Sacra and GOED re-read; quotes exact. Kind changed from company_claim to analysis; the $1B-per-100-reactors line is Contrary quoting an unnamed Valar investor, not Contrary's own estimate; 'cannot earn power revenue' softened to what the record shows.
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.
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.
newanalysisconfirmed Plans and operations in brief: one small test reactor ran; the far bigger plans exist as words, a lease and job ads
2026-09-29 · plan-001 · Valar Atomics, U.S. Department of Energy

What holds (as of 29 September 2026): Valar built a 100 kWt test reactor in California and flew it to Emery County unfueled; DOE approved HALEU TRISO fuel for shipment to it from a federal site in Nevada (no public record states what fuel is loaded, disc-004); and DOE announced its zero-power criticality on 18 June 2026, ahead of the July 4 goal and of Valar's own 30 June target (plan-002, plan-004, plan-008, plan-014). A fuel lab stands beside it and is hiring for a pilot TRISO line (plan-015). What rests on the company's word: full power (plan-006; the only data is an unlabeled chart, plan-007), the electricity demonstration's output (ETV reported the reactor at 37% power, plan-010), and the fuel plant's future size (plan-015). Where Valar's own statements clash: full power on 'June 21' in the state's lease memo versus a 10 kWt output announced 22 June (plan-009); a 12-month demonstration in the approved papers versus a permanent base and 'largest' fuel maker in local talks (plan-003, plan-015); a July 4 date still in the future tense on the homepage (plan-019). Where a Valar document and a DOE document differ: the fuel is listed at 4.95% enrichment in Valar's safety agreement but as HALEU (under 20%) in DOE's shipping review (plan-014, disc-001). What is plan only: fleets and 'thousands of reactors per year' (plan-020), a Carbon County campus with no reactor count, size or date (plan-016), a 30 MW NVIDIA data center (plan-010), a turbine program (plan-018), 'one of Valar's first commercial projects' in Utah (plan-011). What has not happened: the Philippine reactor, the gas-fired test heater, fuel from Valar's own line, the Green River gigasite (plan-021). No power buyer, utility contract or military reactor contract is on the record (plan-012, plan-013). Every site on record is in plan-017; every physical movement of reactor and fuel in plan-025.

In plain termsValar did what it said it would do first: it built a small test reactor and got it running in Utah before July 4, 2026. Almost everything beyond that is still a plan: fleets of reactors, a Carbon County campus, a data center, a fuel factory at full scale. Some of the company's own dates and descriptions disagree with each other, and the government has confirmed only the first step. None of this shows danger or bad faith by itself; it shows how much of the story has no public record behind it yet.
verified 2026-09-29: Verify pass 2026-09-29: summary re-checked against the corrected facts it cites; fuel wording changed from 'shipped' to 'approved for shipment' (no shipment record is public); fuel-enrichment difference added. Correction 2026-09-29 (calculation audit): 'fuelled it with HALEU' now approved for shipment; no public record states what fuel is loaded.
newrecordconfirmed California is the factory: Ward 250 was built and heat-tested in Hawthorne; 71 of 92 job posts are in Torrance
2026-09-29 · plan-008 · Valar Atomics, U.S. Department of Energy

Valar's unlisted, unfinished post dated 28 June 2026 says Ward 250 underwent 'extremely rigorous non-nuclear testing' at its headquarters in Hawthorne, California, before it reached Utah, with temperatures above 750 C and pressures over 6 MPa, thermal cycling and transients; the whole reactor system is six high-cube shipping containers. DOE's Fuel Line Pilot Program page lists the company as 'Valar Atomics Inc. (Hawthorne, California)'. On 29 September 2026 its public job board lists 71 of 92 openings in Torrance, California, including a graphite production lead for machining 'reactor components', CNC programmers, machinists, a welding lead for welds to 'nuclear-grade specifications', and eight turbomachinery roles; two posts name Hawthorne as a work base (a Torrance-listed commercial project manager to 'operate in both Hawthorne and Utah', and an Orangeville-listed people-operations director to be based in or relocate to Hawthorne), and a Utah post mentions travel to the 'Los Angeles headquarters'. The Carbon County claim notice carries a Torrance address (orig-036). In short: reactors and their parts are designed, machined and tested in the Los Angeles area; Utah is where they are fuelled and run. Non-nuclear heat tests are not limited by the nuclear safety limits in the NSDA (a 650 C limit versus 750 C goals, disc-002), so the 750 C figure is not a conflict with them.

In plain termsThe reactor was not built in Utah. It was built and tested with electric heat (no uranium) in the Los Angeles area, then flown in pieces to Utah, where the uranium was added. Most of Valar's hiring is still in California: machinists, welders and turbine engineers. Utah is where the nuclear part happens.
verified 2026-09-29: Verify pass 2026-09-29: feed re-counted (92 posts: 70 'Torrance, California' + 1 'Torrance, CA', 21 Orangeville; 8 Power Conversion turbomachinery roles). Fixed: only one Torrance-listed post names Hawthorne; the other is Orangeville-listed. DOE fuel-line page date set to its last modification (2026-02-12; first published 2025-07-14). Job boards change daily; counts as of 2026-09-29.
newrecordconfirmed Every Valar site on record, Sept 29, 2026: one test reactor, one lease, three pending BLM files, one stalled abroad
2026-09-29 · plan-017 · Valar Atomics, Bureau of Land Management, Utah Trust Lands Administration, Emery County

Built or operating: Ward 250 and its fuel lab at the San Rafael lab, Emery County (plan-002); the company's design, machining and test shops in Hawthorne/Torrance, California (plan-008). Used once: the NOVA test core at the National Criticality Experiments Research Center, Nevada, operated by Los Alamos in November 2025 (orig-008). Being acquired: the 112-acre Emery County parcel beside the lab (gov-022, loc-014). Lease approved: on 17 September 2026 the state trust-lands board approved a lease with purchase option for 480 acres of the section north of Wellington, with the other 160 acres to follow if the National Guard's lease there is moved (mine-011, plan-016); no record read shows the lease signed. Applied for: three Bureau of Land Management cases, all in the Price Field Office, all 'Pending' on 29 September 2026: UTUT106784007 'Green River Gigasite Small Modular Reactor/Data Center' (10,270.61 acres, filed 13 February 2026, which Valar told The Washington Sun it no longer pursues, mine-008), UTUT106801248 'Project Beehive Small Modular Reactor/Data Center' (case date 13 April 2026, no acreage shown), and UTUT106833224, a distribution-line case with no name (entered 23 July 2026). NPR reported on 30 September 2026, citing a Valar proposal to federal regulators that NPR reviewed, that Project Beehive would cover over 9,000 acres of BLM land near Price with data centers, some 456 small reactors of 25 megawatts of electricity each, a fuel facility and nuclear-waste storage, with the first reactors in 2028; BLM's Utah office told NPR it had received an application and was reviewing it for completeness. The proposal itself was not found in public records. No BLM rights-of-way case names Valar outside Utah, and its other public layers show no Valar claims, notices, leases or permits (mine-005, mine-030). Program: NRIC's August 2026 Launch Pad round includes Valar; POWER describes Ward 250 and the Valarin facility (gov-010). Abroad: Ward One in the Philippines, announced March 2025 and still unbuilt and without an approved site as of the last report read (orig-064). Valar says it looked at more than 20 states (ppl-006, loc-001); no site in another state was found in any public record read.

In plain termsHere is the whole map as far as public records go. One small test reactor is running in Emery County, next to a fuel lab. The reactors are built in the Los Angeles area. Valar is buying land next to the Emery lab and has state approval to lease most of a square mile of state land in Carbon County. It asked the federal land agency about three more Utah sites, one of them over 10,000 acres near Green River, which it now says it dropped. NPR has since reported that another, 'Project Beehive' near Price, is planned for about 456 small reactors on over 9,000 acres of federal land. A planned reactor in the Philippines has not been built.
verified 2026-09-29: Verify pass 2026-09-29: BLM layer re-queried (CUST_NM_SEC like VALAR): three Utah cases, all Pending, Price Field Office; Green River 10,270.61 acres, case date 13 Feb 2026; latest modification 15 Sept 2026. Fixed: lease wording overstated (board approval; initial 480 acres; signing not found); Launch Pad wording corrected. Correction 2026-09-29 (wording review): earlier fix note reworded (lease wording).
newcompany claimconfirmed Valar's homepage, Sept 29, 2026: July 4 still 'to go live', and 'we're building hundreds' of reactors on gigasites
2026-09-29 · plan-019 · Valar Atomics

Read on 29 September 2026, Valar's homepage says Valar is 'building hundreds of nuclear reactors on Valar Atomics gigasites' focused on hydrogen (by a sulfur-iodine cycle), data-center power, heavy industrial power and clean hydrocarbon fuels, and that it is partnering with DOE, the San Rafael lab and Utah 'to go live before America's 250th birthday on July 4th, 2026', a date now three months past, written as still ahead. Its technology page says the non-nuclear Ward Zero prototype is 'ready to go live'. The record: one test reactor has been built and operated (plan-002, plan-006); no gigasite has been approved anywhere (the Carbon lease holds land pending permits, plan-016; the Green River application was dropped, mine-008); no hydrogen or synthetic fuel has been produced (orig-063). 'Building hundreds' describes an aim, not work under way. The newer Castle Country page uses past tense for Ward 250 and says 'Ward 250 is step one'.

In plain termsValar's front page still talks about a July 4 deadline as if it has not happened yet, and says the company is building hundreds of reactors at giant sites. In reality it has built one small test reactor. Nothing on the public record shows a giant site approved, or any hydrogen or fuel made. The page describes a goal in the present tense.
verified 2026-09-29: Verify pass 2026-09-29: homepage and technology page re-read; all three quotes exact. Company pages are undated; 'published' is the read date.
newanalysisconfirmed Promised vs delivered, item by item (as of Sept 29, 2026): what held, what changed, what has not happened
2026-09-29 · plan-021 · Valar Atomics, U.S. Department of Energy, Emery County

HELD: 'First Reactor online by July 4, 2026' (Valar's July 2025 deck to Emery County): DOE announced criticality on 18 June 2026 (orig-010), ahead of Valar's own 30 June target (plan-004). HELD AS A PLAN, UNCHECKED: '30 EFPD in 12 months' (deck) matches Valar's June 2026 draft (orig-035); no run log is public (plan-006, plan-007). CHANGED: 'in a temporary facility' (deck): the approved papers still plan to take Ward 250 down after about a year of running (plan-003), but what was built is a 55-foot modular reactor complex on engineered foundations with more than 4,000 cubic yards of concrete poured, beside a fuel plant (plan-002), on a site Valar now calls home and is expanding (plan-003, ppl-006); '40 employees for about 12 months' (July 2025) became a projection of 275 jobs and $1.3 billion for a state tax credit (loc-004, fund-017). LATE: DOE safety approvals came about two months behind Valar's own schedule, by the only report of their dates (plan-004). NOT DELIVERED: the Philippine reactor announced in March 2025 (orig-064); the gas-fired supercritical-CO2 test heater Valar wanted done by June 2026, approved for design only (plan-018); fuel from Valar's own line: Ward 250's fuel came from a federal site in Nevada (plan-014). DROPPED: the 10,270-acre Green River gigasite, per Valar, though BLM still lists it pending (plan-017, mine-008). NOT YET DUE, NO FILING: 'Commercial Deployment by 2028' (deck), the 30 MW NVIDIA data center (plan-010), 'hundreds of reactors' in Carbon and Emery (loc-001). CONFLICTING: the date of full power (plan-009) and, on paper, the fuel's enrichment (plan-014).

In plain termsChecked one by one: Valar kept its biggest public promise, a working test reactor before July 4, 2026. Several other things grew far beyond what locals were first told (a 'temporary' one-year test sits on a site the company now calls home, with a fuel plant beside it and talk of hundreds of reactors). Some promises have not happened (the Philippines reactor, a test heater, making its own fuel), and the biggest future promises have no filing behind them yet.
verified 2026-09-29: Verify pass 2026-09-29: deck, NSDA Table 7, ETV/USREL update, Research Board minutes and BLM layer re-read. Fixed: the 'temporary facility' line now says the approved plan is still temporary; the delay figure corrected to about two months (plan-004).
newrecordconfirmed A uranium fuel line is being set up beside Ward 250; no DOE safety authorization for it has been made public
2026-09-29 · safe-031 · Valar Atomics, U.S. Department of Energy

DOE named Valar on 30 September 2025 in 'the second round of conditional selections' for its Fuel Line Pilot Program, 'to support TRISO fuel fabrication for the Ward250 reactor deployment'; the program uses DOE authorization for fuel lines. Valar's QA program covers a 'Valarin Fuel Fabrication Facility' at the lab, based on German HOBEG methods and designed to stay below DOE Hazard Category 3 ('<HC3'; orig-038); DOE-STD-1271 bars adding nuclear material above Hazard Category 3 levels to a facility until the readiness review and startup approval are complete; a fuel line kept below that level would not reach that gate, and no record read says what review applies instead. DOE's categorical exclusion says the Ward 250 facility 'comprises the Reactor Complex and Fuel Laboratory', and Valar's QA program calls the Ward250 Fuel Laboratory a TRISO fuel manufacturing facility, but the CX's analysis does not mention fuel fabrication. Valar job postings open on 29 September 2026 seek engineers in Orangeville to 'install, troubleshoot, and optimize pilot scale uranium processing equipment' on a TRISO line (a fluidized-bed chemical vapor deposition coater; one posting asks for experience with wet chemistry or high-temperature processing), building on 'completed HAZOPs and existing safety analyses', a Nuclear Operations Manager to oversee 'both the reactor plant and the pilot TRISO fuel fabrication facility', and a material control and accounting specialist for special nuclear material 'at Valar Atomics TRISO manufacturing facilities'. DOE's selection release says each company bears all costs of building, operating and decommissioning its fuel facility. By comparison, Oklo announced in November 2025 that DOE's Idaho office had approved an NSDA for its fuel fabrication facility, the first under the fuel-line program. No NSDA, safety analysis, DOE authorization or state license for Valar's fuel line was found as of 29 September 2026. The Carbon County plan also includes fuel manufacturing (csite-007). The quality program gives no uranium inventory, enrichment or threshold for its <HC3 claim, and the safety agreement never mentions the fuel facility (it categorizes only the reactor, as Hazard Category 2), so the claim cannot be checked from Valar's public papers.

In plain termsMaking nuclear fuel involves handling uranium as powders and chemicals, which brings its own hazards: chemical exposure, fire, and accidental chain reactions if too much uranium is gathered in one place. Valar is staffing a small fuel factory beside the Emery County reactor. Its papers say it is designed to stay in DOE's lowest hazard tier. DOE picked Valar's fuel line for its program on a conditional basis, but the fuel line's safety paperwork and approval, if they exist, are not public.
verified 2026-09-29: Re-read DOE's fuel-line release (30 Sept 2025), QAPD pp. 2-6, CX p. 1, DOE-STD-1271 fig. 1 and the live Greenhouse feed (92 postings; CVD engineer, TRISO process engineer, Nuclear Operations Manager and MC&A specialist postings read) on 2026-09-29. Holds. Fixed: 'wet chemistry' is a qualification in one posting, not a named line component; the CX 'fuel laboratory' is the QAPD's fuel manufacturing facility. Added Oklo's public fuel-line NSDA as a comparison. Correction 2026-09-29 (calculation audit): added that the <HC3 claim gives no inventory or threshold and cannot be checked.
newcompany claimconfirmed Valar's job board: 21 Utah openings, all in Orangeville, incl. uranium processing now 'pilot scale'; none in Carbon
2026-09-28 · loc-019 · Valar Atomics

Valar's public job board (Greenhouse, read 29 September 2026; postings updated 28 September) lists 92 openings: 71 in Torrance, California and 21 in Orangeville, Utah, and none in Carbon County, Price or Wellington. The Orangeville posts include plant operators, nuclear operations engineer and manager, instrumentation and electrical technicians, a site environmental health and safety specialist, a construction quality inspector, a development and construction finance director, and a Material Control and Accounting Specialist, whose post says the job leads the safeguards program for special nuclear material at Valar's TRISO manufacturing facilities under DOE and NRC requirements. Two fuel posts (a TRISO chemical plant process engineer, posted 16 July, and a TRISO chemical vapor deposition engineer, posted 31 July 2026) describe work to 'install, troubleshoot, and optimize pilot scale uranium processing equipment' in Orangeville; the second calls it a manufacturing 'pilot line' and says the engineer will build on 'completed HAZOPs and existing safety analyses' (a HAZOP is a structured hazard review) as 'the process transitions into production'. Set beside the record: in June 2026 Valar told Orangeville the fuel building would make it the largest US maker of this fuel once completed (loc-016); the job posts describe a pilot stage now; no DOE authorization for the fuel line was found in the public record (safe-031); and the local job figures in loc-004 cannot be matched to a payroll. Job boards change daily; these counts are as of 29 September 2026.

In plain termsValar's own hiring page shows its Utah jobs are all in Orangeville, with none yet at the Carbon County site. Some of those jobs are running equipment that processes uranium into fuel, described as a 'pilot', meaning a first small-scale version, now moving toward production. No federal safety approval for that fuel work was found in the public record as of 29 September 2026.
verified 2026-09-29: Re-read the board API and both posting pages on 29 Sept: 92 postings (70 'Torrance, California' plus one 'Torrance, CA'), 21 Orangeville. Corrected the attribution: the HAZOP and 'into production' phrases are in the vapor-deposition post only.
newcompany claimconfirmed Job posts show next steps: a turbine program, DOE and NRC licensing, a manager for a 'first commercial project'
2026-09-28 · plan-011 · Valar Atomics

Valar's public job board (read 29 September 2026; 92 openings, 86 first posted since June 2026) adds detail to loc-019. Torrance-listed roles (71): instrumentation and controls (19), eight 'Power Conversion' turbomachinery roles for a planned 'secondary loop Brayton cycle' (a gas turbine driven by reactor heat) with 'a purpose-built test facility program', manufacturing, machine and weld shops, graphite production, supply chain, licensing and legal. Orangeville roles (21): site operations (a Nuclear Operations Manager, a Nuclear Operations Engineer and Plant Operators who may work at 'the reactor plant or the pilot fuel fabrication facility'), fuels and materials (TRISO process and coating engineers, a nuclear material accountant), controls, QA, EH&S, HR, and a Development and Construction Finance Director whose job is cost tracking 'across active projects' and processes that 'scale across multiple construction sites'. A Project Manager, Commercial Projects (Torrance, 'operate in both Hawthorne and Utah') will 'lead development execution for one of Valar's first commercial projects' from site development to investment decision, asks applicants for experience on projects costing '$1B or more' (the post does not give this project's own cost), and will serve as a senior project representative in Utah with government and community; the post names no site. A Director of Licensing will run 'multiple concurrent licensing campaigns' across DOE and NRC pathways (safe-032). No posting mentions Carbon County, Wellington, Green River or any named future site, and none is located in Carbon County. The Power Conversion post says Valar's HTGR 'power conversion system will be built around' this turbine cycle, in the future tense; Ward 250's July electricity demonstration used a thermoelectric generator, not a turbine (ETV, 1 July; plan-010).

In plain termsHelp-wanted ads often say more about plans than press releases. Valar is hiring people to build turbines that turn reactor heat into electricity, lawyers and engineers to get licenses from both DOE and the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and a manager for 'one of our first commercial projects', a job that asks for experience on billion-dollar projects. The ads do not say where that project is or what it will cost, though the manager must spend much of the time in Utah. None of the jobs is in Carbon County yet.
verified 2026-09-29: Verify pass 2026-09-29: feed re-counted (86 of 92 first posted June 2026 or later; 19 Torrance I&C; 8 Power Conversion) and all five job pages re-read; quotes hold. Fixed: the '$1B' is the experience the post asks for, not this project's stated cost; 'Ward 250 has no turbine' was unsourced and replaced by the job post's own future-tense wording and ETV's thermoelectric-generator report.
newrecordconfirmed No State Engineer notice naming Valar: 61 water-right notices in the local paper, Oct 2023 to Sept 2026
2026-09-23 · loc-031 · Utah Division of Water Rights, State Engineer, Valar Atomics, ETV News

Utah Code 73-3-6 requires the State Engineer to publish notice of a water-right application once a week for two successive weeks in a newspaper of general circulation in the county of the source and of use (and on the state's legal-notice site), and the notices set a deadline for written protests. ETV News, delivered to every home in Carbon and Emery, carries these 'NOTICE TO WATER USERS' notices. Its search feed returned 159 of them, from June 2018 to 23 September 2026, 61 published between 11 October 2023 and 23 September 2026 (26 with Emery County applications); all were read. None names Valar Atomics or a nuclear use, and none concerns Section 16, T14S R11E (the Wellington lease) or industrial water near Orangeville for Valar. The Carbon applications are mostly irrigation and canal-company changes along the Price River; the Emery ones include coal, power-plant and ranch uses, and a 23 September 2026 notice lists a Trust Lands gravel-operation well 22 miles east of Castle Dale (protests due 20 October). This fits what Valar says so far: its current water comes through Orangeville's system with shares turned in to the city (loc-017), and no record read shows a state application for that; the 1,000 additional shares are 'in the discussion phase'. It also means no public protest window has yet opened on any Valar water use. The Trust Lands memo says the Wellington site must buy existing rights and move them by a publicly advertised change application (mine-015, mine-017). ETV's search may not return every notice, and the Emery County Progress, which may also carry them, did not answer (sources_not_read); the state's legal-notice website was not searched.

In plain termsWhen someone files an application with the State Engineer to take new water or change an existing water right in Utah, the state has to announce it in the local paper so neighbours can object. We read every such announcement we could find in the local paper back to 2018: none was for Valar. So the big water question, the up-to-1,000 shares and water for a Wellington campus, has not yet reached the stage where the public gets a formal say. Watch the 'Notice to Water Users' column for Valar's name.
verified 2026-09-29: Re-read the statute, the latest notice and all 15 feed pages. Count corrected from 62 to 61 for Oct 2023-Sept 2026 (the feed goes back to 2018: 159 notices, none naming Valar). Softened an uncited legal inference about Orangeville's shares.
newcompany claimconfirmed The Carbon plan includes a fuel factory: HALEU, LEU+ or LEU uranium shipped in and made into TRISO fuel on site
2026-09-17 · csite-007 · Valar Atomics, Utah Trust Lands Administration, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, U.S. Department of Energy

Under 'Fuel Feedstock Delivery & Handling', the memorandum says high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU), 'low-enriched uranium plus' (LEU+) or low-enriched uranium (LEU) may be delivered to the site in certified special-nuclear-material containers under NRC, DOT and DOE rules, and that the feedstock 'would then be manufactured into TRISO fuel pellets' for the reactors on site. The staff slides list 'Manufacture TRISO fuel' as a project purpose. The memo does not say which enrichment Valar would use, how much uranium would be kept on site, or which agency would license the fuel plant. Valar's own documents already disagree on whether Ward 250's fuel is 4.95% LEU or HALEU (disc-001, orig-040); the Carbon memo leaves all three grades open.

In plain termsThe Carbon campus is meant to make nuclear fuel as well as use it. Enriched uranium would be trucked in and turned into TRISO fuel: tiny coated beads, each about the size of a poppy seed, packed into larger fuel pieces. DOE's own description says the beads are made into 'cylindrical pellets' or ball-shaped 'pebbles', so the memo's word 'pellets' matches DOE usage (exp-001). The grade is not fixed: LEU (the grade today's power reactors use, enriched up to 5% in the uranium that splits, per DOE), 'LEU+' (a grade between) or HALEU (DOE: between 5% and less than 20%; orig-040). Richer uranium means more of the material that sustains a chain reaction, so how much would be stored and how it would be guarded matters to neighbours. The records read do not answer that yet.
verified 2026-09-29: Holds. Re-read 2026-09-29: memo p. 19 (TRISO fuel manufacturing) and p. 22 (Fuel Feedstock Delivery & Handling); August slides p. 43. Quotes exact. Kind company_claim: the applicant's plan relayed by the state. Plain text tightened (grade definitions tied to orig-040). Second check 29 Sept 2026: grade and fuel-form wording in the plain text now rests on DOE's HALEU and TRISO pages (read 29 Sept). DOE calls the fabricated forms 'cylindrical pellets' or 'pebbles', so the memo's 'TRISO fuel pellets' holds as a term; LEU is 'up to 5%' per DOE, not 'below 5%'.
newrecordconfirmed Schools: the Carbon lease pays the statewide school trust, not Carbon's schools directly; school ties are small
2026-09-17 · loc-021 · Utah Trust Lands Administration, Permanent State School Fund, School LAND Trust Program, Carbon County School District, Emery County School District, Valar Atomics

The Wellington section is held for the Public Schools Trust (csite-002). Trust Lands says 'nearly all' the revenue it earns is deposited in the Permanent School Fund, and that each year the fund's gains, interest and dividends are distributed to every public school in Utah by enrollment through the School LAND Trust program. So the $400,000 bonus and rent from Valar (mine-011; ETV reported about $35 million over 50 years) go into that statewide fund, not to Carbon County schools as such; a Carbon school gets its enrollment share like any other. Property taxes on any buildings would go to local taxing entities, including the Carbon County School District, subject to any incentive (none found for Carbon, csite-029). The school beneficiaries' advocate supported the lease (csite-028). Other school and college ties found: Valar was among the donors the Emery High National Honor Society thanked for its 17 August back-to-school event (ETV, 19 Aug 2026); a Southern Utah University engineering student interned at Valar's Orangeville site (SUU release, September 2026); Valar presented to USU Eastern's Eastern Leaders Academy (March 2026, loc-022). No agreement between Valar and the Emery County School District appears in its board's agendas and minutes posted on the state notice site from April to September 2026 (read; the 8 April minutes mention Valar only as one of the local businesses at a school's career day), and the Carbon School District board's page there listed no notices when read on 29 September 2026.

In plain termsThe state land the trust approved leasing to Valar near Wellington is held in trust for Utah's schools, so the rent helps schools, but statewide, not specially in Carbon County. Every Utah public school gets a share based on how many students it has. The local school ties so far are small: a donation to a high-school club's event, a student internship and a school career-day visit.
verified 2026-09-29: Re-read the Trust Lands page and ETV items: holds. The school-district sentence had no cited source; read both boards' notice pages and the Emery board's 14 posted documents (April minutes mention Valar at a school career day) and added them. The Emery High item says Valar was thanked among donors, now worded that way. Correction 2026-09-29 (wording review): lease wording now 'approved leasing'.
newcompany claimconfirmed The Carbon County plan on paper: a phased reactor-and-factory campus with no reactor count, size, schedule or job figure
2026-09-17 · plan-016 · Valar Atomics, Utah Trust Lands Administration

The state's lease record (staff memo and slides for the Trust Lands board, August and September 2026) describes the purpose of the Wellington-area lease as 'an integrated nuclear energy, advanced manufacturing, critical mineral refining, and data center computing campus': developing, manufacturing and operating helium-cooled high-temperature reactors to generate electrical power, TRISO fuel manufacturing, component manufacturing, concrete batch plants, training facilities, hydrogen and synthetic fuels, data centers, water desalination and steel. The memo says development is planned 'across multiple phases progressing from manufacturing construction to reactor fleet deployment' and that the campus 'will take many years to build'; rent is a low 'Development Phase' rate for years 1 to 5 (mine-011). The slides say Valar wants to lease the land 'while they complete site permitting'. Nowhere in the memo or slides is there a number of reactors, a power output, a construction date or a job count. The only scale figures on record come from speech: ETV reported the CEO hoping for hundreds of reactors in Carbon and Emery (10 September; loc-001). Carbon County site facts (location, easements, notice, permits, water) are in carbon_site.json (csite-001 to csite-032) and mining.json (mine-010 to mine-017); the RW 453 claim notice is fld-002.

In plain termsOn paper, the Carbon County project is a very large industrial park: reactors, a fuel factory, parts factories, maybe data centers, hydrogen and steel, built in stages over many years. But the state's documents give no numbers: not how many reactors, not how big, not when, not how many jobs. The lease mainly holds the land while Valar seeks permits. The big numbers people have heard came from speeches, not from any filing.
verified 2026-09-29: Verify pass 2026-09-29: memo (Sept packet pp. 18-26) and Aug 20 slides re-read; both quotes exact. No reactor count, power output, construction date or job count appears in either. Initial lease is 480 acres, with 160 more if the Guard lease is relocated (csite-003).
newcompany claimreported Sept 10 open house, a week before the Carbon lease vote: CEO spoke of hundreds of reactors in Carbon and Emery
2026-09-10 · loc-001 · Valar Atomics, Isaiah Taylor, Max Ukropina, David Hinkins, Jess Housekeeper, Harry Hansen

ETV News (14 Sept 2026) reported Valar's public open house at its Orangeville site on Thursday, 10 September 2026, for Carbon and Emery residents: small-group tours of the Ward 250 building, food and entertainment. As ETV reported it, head of projects Max Ukropina said Valar has hired dozens of community members and wants to hire more; founder and CEO Isaiah Taylor said Valar chose Emery and Carbon counties after considering more than 22 states, and that Valar hopes to build hundreds of reactors in Carbon and Emery counties (ETV's paraphrase, not a quote); he was quoted hoping residents will come to work for Valar 'as we grow here in your backyard'. State Sen. David Hinkins spoke of industry easing residents' property taxes. The report does not mention the Wellington trust-land lease the Trust Lands board approved seven days later (mine-011; ETV, 18 Sept), any Carbon County site, a fuel factory or a timeline. When Valar's Harry Hansen (spelled Hanson in that report) announced the open house to the Carbon County Commission on 2 September, he called it a chance to 'come check out what’s going on here in Orangeville' and said Valar planned a town hall specifically for Carbon County residents in late September or early October, date not yet set (ETV, 4 Sept). Whether the Carbon site came up in the small-group tours is not in any record read.

In plain termsAt a public open house one week before the state approved the Carbon County land deal, Valar's founder told residents, as the local paper reported it, that the company hopes to build hundreds of reactors in Carbon and Emery counties. The paper's account names no site. So people there heard how big the plan is, but not, going by the report, that a square mile of state land north of Wellington was about to be approved for leasing for it.
verified 2026-09-29: Re-read ETV 14 Sept and 4 Sept pages: holds (hundreds of reactors is ETV's paraphrase). Added the 4 Sept report of a planned Carbon County town hall and the 18 Sept source for the site's location. Correction 2026-09-29 (wording review): lease wording now 'approved leasing'.
newrecordconfirmed The military tie is one airlift: Valar is not among the Army's five Janus reactor firms or DIU's eight eligible vendors
2026-08-26 · plan-012 · Valar Atomics, U.S. Army, Defense Innovation Unit, U.S. Air Force · Army Janus program, combined ceiling for five other vendors (not Valar): $2,200,000,000

Valar's Castle Country page says Ward 250 flew to Utah on three C-17s 'in partnership with the Department of Energy and the Department of War' (Operation Windlord, 15 February 2026; orig-030, orig-027). No Defense Department contract with Valar is on the federal spending record (gov-027), and who paid for the flights is reported, not documented (fund-013). The Defense Innovation Unit's list of companies eligible for its Advanced Nuclear Power for Installations program (10 April 2025) names eight firms (Antares, BWXT, General Atomics, Kairos, Oklo, Radiant, Westinghouse, X-energy), not Valar. The Army's Janus program (26 August 2026) picked five vendors for five bases, up to $2.2 billion combined (Antares, BWXT, General Atomics, Radiant, Westinghouse), not Valar. Valar's job board lists military technical experience as a qualification or preference in several posts, and one post asks for the ability to obtain any required DOE or NRC access or clearance (plan-011), but no military customer, contract or site for a Valar reactor was found as of 29 September 2026.

In plain termsThe Air Force flew Valar's reactor (without fuel) to Utah, which made headlines. But when the military actually chose companies to build reactors on its bases, Valar was not picked, either in 2025 or in August 2026. So far the military connection is a flight, not a contract.
verified 2026-09-29: Verify pass 2026-09-29: Army release re-read: five vendors, five installations, up to $2.2 billion, no Valar. DIU list re-read: eight firms, no Valar. Castle Country quote holds. Fixed the job-post wording: only one post asks about clearance; the other 'clearance' hits are mechanical clearances. Correction 2026-09-29 (wording review): re-reading process note moved to the internal log.
newrecordconfirmed What stands at the San Rafael lab now: a 2-acre fenced reactor-and-fuel compound on a 20.6-acre state site
2026-08-24 · plan-002 · Valar Atomics, U.S. Department of Energy, Utah San Rafael Energy Research Center, ETV News

DOE's environmental determination for Ward 250 (signed 22 April 2026) describes the Ward250 facility as a 'Reactor Complex and Fuel Laboratory' inside a security fence of about 2 acres, within the state-run Utah San Rafael Energy Research Center, a 20.6-acre site near Orangeville; the reactor complex is about 55 feet high and made of modular buildings on engineered foundations tied only to existing lab utilities. A joint update from the state lab and Valar, run in ETV News on 23 January 2026, said local contractors had moved and crushed about 40,000 cubic yards of material and poured over 4,000 cubic yards of concrete for foundations of the Ward 250 test reactor and a fuel fabrication facility. ETV (24 August 2026), reporting a business-chamber tour on 19 August, said the reactor was now enclosed in cement bricks that hide it from view, and described an operations center and exhaust equipment designed to detect radioactive particles and shut the exhaust off. Valar's open job posts (29 September 2026) staff both 'the reactor plant' and a 'pilot TRISO fuel fabrication facility' in Orangeville. Other things at or beside the lab are recorded elsewhere: Valar's proposed 10 MW gas-fired test heater, approved only for design (gov-014); other nuclear companies courting the lab (gov-031); the 112-acre county parcel next door that Valar is buying (gov-022, loc-014); and the unauthorized sewer tie-in (loc-015).

In plain termsRight now the Emery County site is a small fenced compound, about one and a half football fields, on state land. Inside are two main things: the test reactor building (about five stories tall) and a building where Valar plans to make its own uranium fuel. Everything else people talk about (more reactors, a data center, a big campus) is a plan, not something built.
verified 2026-09-29: Verify pass 2026-09-29: DOE NEPA text (2 acres, 20.6-acre site, 55 feet, modular structures), the USREL/Valar update and the job-feed quote all re-read and hold. ETV said the bricks shield the reactor 'from view'; 'concrete block shielding' overstated it and was reworded. ETV byline corrected (the page does not credit Emery County Progress).
newrecordreported Carbon County move: state trust-lands board agenda lists a 640-acre special use lease with Valar near Wellington
2026-08-20 · orig-044 · Valar Atomics, Utah Trust Lands Administration

The Utah Trust Lands Administration posted a notice that it had received an application, from an applicant it did not name, for Section 16, Township 14 South, Range 11 East, SLB&M, about 640 acres near Wellington in Carbon County, and invited competing bids to lease, buy or exchange it by August 7, 2026. The board's August 20, 2026 agenda lists a discussion item on a Special Use Lease Agreement (SULA 2095 OBA) for 640 acres in Carbon County with Valar Atomics. This was the first primary record found of Valar seeking a site outside the Emery County test lab. Later records settle what this fact first left open: the board memo gives Section 16 as the lease (csite-002), and the board approved the arrangement on September 17, 2026 (mine-011, csite-001). The notice named neither Valar nor a nuclear use (csite-005, mine-012).

In plain termsValar's Carbon County site first shows up in public state records in August 2026, as a lease of a square mile of state trust land north of Wellington. The state board approved it on September 17, 2026 (csite-001).
verified 2026-09-29: Verify pass 2 (2026-09-29): agenda PDF (item 10A, SULA 2095 OBA, 640 acres, Valar Atomics) and Trust Lands notice (Sec. 16 T14S R11E, near Wellington, bids by Aug 7, applicant unnamed; page now marked 'archived') re-read. Match; quotes exact.
newrecordconfirmed Carbon and Emery move to share a $60,000 consultant to chase coal, gas, nuclear and manufacturing deals
2026-08-19 · loc-029 · Carbon County Commission, Emery County Commission, Utah Public Affairs Consulting, Valar Atomics · joint Carbon-Emery economic development consulting agreement (Carbon approved 19 Aug 2026): $60,000

Carbon County Commission minutes, 19 August 2026, item 9 (the item right after the 'Valor Atomics presentation'): commissioners approved, contingent on Emery County's approval, on Commissioner Haddock's motion seconded by Commissioner Jensen (the motion carried), a joint $60,000 consulting agreement with John Cox of Utah Public Affairs Consulting 'to identify and secure economic development opportunities' across coal, natural gas, nuclear and advanced manufacturing, split $30,000 each with Emery County; Carbon's half comes from unused economic-development consulting funds; the commission approved it contingent on Emery's approval. Emery County's 1 September minutes approve 2027 rural county grant projects that include $30,000 (printed '$30,00') for a 'potential Economic Development Consultant' (the grant money comes from the state's rural county grants); one commissioner said he would rather Emery had its own consultant, not one shared with Carbon; on 15 September the commission 'agreed to move ahead with a possible partnership' with Carbon to hire the consultant (ETV). No record read shows the signed agreement, the contract text, or whether the consultant has any tie to Valar or other nuclear developers. On the same 19 August item 8, the minutes record Valar saying it 'relocated to the region from California two years ago'; Valar's job board still lists 71 of its 92 openings in Torrance, California (loc-019), and its Carbon claim notice gives a Torrance address (orig-036).

In plain termsThe two counties agreed to share the cost of a paid consultant whose job is to bring in new industry, nuclear included. That is public, and legal, but it shows the counties are actively recruiting, not just reacting. The contract itself, and any link between the consultant and particular companies, would come out in a GRAMA request to either county.
verified 2026-09-29: Re-read the Carbon 19 Aug minutes (page images), the agenda, Emery's 1 Sept minutes and ETV 21 Sept: holds. Correction 2026-09-30 (commission records check): the minutes name Haddock as mover and Jensen as seconder
newcompany claimreported Chamber tour, Aug 19: local report said meltdown risk is 'completely' removed; Valar's safety paper is more measured
2026-08-19 · loc-006 · Emery County Business Chamber, Valar Atomics, Intermountain Electronics

ETV News (24 Aug 2026) reported the Emery County Business Chamber's 'Lunch and Learn' tour of Valar's site on 19 August 2026. The report says the reactor is now enclosed in cement block walls; that the site has exhaust equipment designed to detect radioactive particles and shut off the exhaust if there is any potential for outside contamination; and that the helium-cooled design lets the reactor shut down within seconds, 'completely removing the risk of a meltdown'. That last sentence is the paper's narration of what the group learned on the company's tour and is not attributed to a named speaker, so it cannot be treated as Valar's exact words. The report also says Valar discussed 'potential plans' to produce reactors for industrial businesses so heavy power users can move off the grid, citing the Price firm Intermountain Electronics 'strictly as an example'. Set beside the record: Valar's own Nuclear Safety Design Agreement (October 2025 draft) analyses a bounding 'maximum hypothetical accident' that assumes TRISO fuel particle failures beyond demonstrated limits and a release of radioactive material, and estimates the resulting dose at the site boundary (safe-013, loc-035); the Union of Concerned Scientists calls TRISO 'far from meltdown-proof' (safe-025). No public monitoring data for the exhaust system has been published (safe-024). Supplying reactors to private businesses would be commercial use, which the DOE research pathway Ward 250 runs under does not cover; that would need separate licensing (safe-030).

In plain termsThe local paper's account of a company tour for business owners said the reactor's design completely removes the risk of a meltdown. Valar's own safety paper does not go that far: its worst-case study assumes some of the fuel's protective coatings fail and calculates how much radiation would reach the fence. The fuel is very tough, but independent scientists call it strong, not meltdown-proof. The paper also reported talk of selling reactors to local businesses, which would go beyond the research-only permission the test reactor has now.
verified 2026-09-29: Re-read ETV 24 Aug: the meltdown line is narration, not attributed; kept as a reported company claim with that caveat. Replaced 'DOE says not quite' (not what DOE sources say) with Valar's own safety agreement, read directly. Softened the plain field, which had said business owners came away believing a meltdown is impossible (the paper does not say that).
newrecordconfirmed Roads: residents raised Highway 29 truck traffic; Orangeville adds speed signs, citing mine and Valar traffic
2026-08-13 · loc-009 · Orangeville City Council, Emery County Commission, Utah Highway Patrol, Valar Atomics

At Emery County's 7 April 2026 hearing on the land sale, residents raised truck traffic along Highway 29, and the state lab director told the hearing that the land was zoned as an industrial park for exactly this kind of expansion (ETV, 9 April). Earlier, on 19 February 2026, an Orangeville councilman asked for opinions on whether the city wants Valar to haul its 'nuclear parts' through town or to ask that they go around on the highway (minutes). On 7 July 2026 Emery County approved a memorandum of understanding with Orangeville for three speed-limit signs, contingent on partnerships and funding (ETV, 8 July), and on 13 August the Orangeville council approved its MOU with the county and the Utah Highway Patrol (minutes), city officials saying the signs had become more urgent with increased traffic from mining and Valar (ETV, 20 Aug). The council also noted coal trucks from the Fossil Rock mine, now in production, on Coal Haul Road, the road that serves the lab. No traffic study for Valar's site or the planned expansion was found in any record read.

In plain termsMore trucks are using the roads into Orangeville, from the coal mine and from Valar's construction, and residents raised truck traffic at the land-sale hearing. Local governments are responding with speed-limit signs, and a council member has asked how reactor parts should be routed. No one has published a traffic study for Valar's growth.
verified 2026-09-29: Re-read ETV 9 April, 8 July, 20 Aug: holds. Removed a wrong cross-reference (gov-023 concerns the Inland Port, not the signs), 'reopened' mine (not in the sources) and the lab director 'answering' traffic (he spoke of zoning). Added Orangeville minutes for 19 Feb and 13 Aug; upgraded to confirmed on those primary records.
newanalysisconfirmed More Series B lines checked: 'a week later' was 13 days; 'no burden on our water supply'; Valar making its own fuel
2026-08-04 · orig-070 · Valar Atomics, NVIDIA

(1) The Series B post says that 'just a week later' than the June 18 criticality, Ward 250 generated electricity to power an NVIDIA Blackwell. Valar's own Castle Country page and Deseret News date that event July 1, 2026, thirteen days after criticality (orig-013, orig-042), and TechCrunch, attributing it to the company, wrote that it happened in June. A small point, but the company's own pages disagree. (2) The post says its power will be generated in reactors with no burden on the water supply. The Trust Lands memo says the helium-cooled reactors need no cooling water (mine-017), which supports the reactor part; separately Valar is seeking up to 1,000 water shares in Emery County for future development (mine-042) and would have to buy water rights for its Carbon County campus (mine-017). The claim holds for reactor cooling; the wider campus needs water. (3) The post says Valar will not rely on outside suppliers for fuel and will make it in labs beside its reactors. So far, DOE's shipping review cleared HALEU fuel for Ward 250 to be shipped from Los Alamos's criticality center in Nevada (safe-010); DOE's fuel-line selection of Valar is conditional (orig-032); and no DOE authorization of the Valarin fuel line is public (safe-031). A plan, not the current practice. (4) 'Ward 250's operability has been proven': DOE confirmed criticality (orig-010); the power reached and the run history are not public (orig-013, safe-007).

In plain termsChecking more lines from Valar's big funding announcement: the electricity demonstration came about two weeks after start-up, not 'a week'; the reactors themselves need no cooling water, but the company is buying water rights for its wider plans; and Valar's fuel so far came from a federal laboratory, not from its own plant, which is still a plan.
verified 2026-09-29: Verify pass 2 (2026-09-29): Series B post, Castle Country page and TechCrunch ('In June ... the company said') re-read; quotes exact. DOE's shipping review, relied on for point 3, read and added.
newcompany claimconfirmed The $1B plan in Valar's words: fleets 'en masse', then thousands a year; no site, model, factory or date is named
2026-08-04 · plan-020 · Valar Atomics, U.S. Department of Energy, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission · Series B equity, as announced by Valar: $1,000,000,000

Valar's Series B post (4 August 2026) says the money lets it move from demonstrating one integrated reactor to 'producing fleets of them en masse', with each reactor shortening the next until Valar produces 'tens, then hundreds, then thousands of reactors per year' in factories 'filled wall to wall' with small modular reactors, and that it will make its own fuel beside its reactors. It names no next reactor design or size, no factory site, no customer and no date. The concrete signs of the next step are elsewhere: a manager for 'one of Valar's first commercial projects' in Utah on the job board (plan-011), a turbine program (plan-018), the Carbon lease (plan-016), a state tax-credit application projecting $1.3 billion of investment and 275 jobs in Emery County (fund-017), and a promise to Emery County in July 2025 of 'Commercial Deployment by 2028' (orig-045). DOE's July 2026 fact sheet, in its paragraph on Antares's Mark-0, says that demonstration set a baseline for 'subsequent reactors' to produce electricity 'in 2027 and the following years'; it gives no electricity date for Valar. Any reactor that sells power would need an NRC license under DOE's own terms (safe-030, csite-010); no NRC application or pre-application from Valar has been found (an open question in government.json; safe-032).

In plain termsValar raised a billion dollars on the promise of mass-producing reactors, eventually thousands a year. The announcement does not say what the next reactor is, where it will be built, or when. To sell power legally, a reactor needs a license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and Valar has not yet applied for one as far as the public record shows.
verified 2026-09-29: Verify pass 2026-09-29: Series B post, DOE fact sheet and the July 2025 deck (1295975.pdf, 12 pages) re-read; quotes exact. Fixed: the fact sheet's 2027 sentence sits in its Antares paragraph and was described too broadly.
newrecordconfirmed Utah-DOE 'lifecycle campus' pact cites Ward 250's 'successful permitting' and plans for out-of-state spent fuel
2026-07-27 · gov-030 · U.S. Department of Energy, State of Utah, Chris Wright, Spencer Cox, Valar Atomics

The memorandum of understanding signed on 27 July 2026 by Energy Secretary Chris Wright and Gov. Spencer Cox to establish a Nuclear Lifecycle Innovation Campus (NLIC) in Utah (posted by OED; read from its page images) names, as the 'Historical Foundation' of the partnership, 'the successful permitting, development, and testing of Valar Atomics' Ward 250' test reactor at the San Rafael lab. It calls for a later Host Agreement that 'shall address the acceptance and management of out-of-state used nuclear fuel, spent nuclear fuel, high-level radioactive waste, and greater than class C radioactive waste'; says permanent disposal facilities at the campus would be NRC-licensed, with the state never the licensee; has DOE provide regulatory oversight under 10 CFR 830 for non-NRC activities; says decisions on public disclosure under FOIA or GRAMA 'will be made following consultation between the Parties'; and lets either side end it if no Host Agreement is signed by 30 September 2026. It also commits both sides to 'robust community engagement and transparency' (3.1), runs for 30 years, and extends federal nuclear-accident indemnity (AEA section 170d) to the state, campus tenants and contractors. The MOU names no site; the governor's March 2026 release named Tooele County as the candidate host (gov-015 sources), and no record read places the campus in Carbon or Emery County. Set beside the record: the only permitting on file for Ward 250 is DOE's (safe-001, safe-007); no state permit for it was found (gov-017).

In plain termsIn July 2026 the Energy Secretary and Utah's governor signed a pact to build a large nuclear fuel-cycle campus in Utah, possibly including the handling of spent fuel and high-level waste shipped in from other states. They point to Valar's reactor as proof that Utah can do this, calling its permitting 'successful'. That is the government holding up Valar as a model; the reactor's actual approvals remain unpublished. The campus's location is not set in the document; the state's candidate so far is Tooele County, not Carbon or Emery.
verified 2026-09-29: Re-rendered and read all 8 page images of the NLIC MOU and re-read the governor's Tooele release 2026-09-29; quote exact. Holds; added the transparency commitment, 30-year term and indemnity clause.
newrecordconfirmed Orangeville is drafting an 'Advanced Energy and Manufacturing' zone for Valar's land, with Valar's lawyers reviewing
2026-07-16 · loc-013 · Orangeville City Council, Orangeville City Planning and Zoning, Valar Atomics, Jess Housekeeper, Emery County Commission, Castle Valley Special Service District

Orangeville City records: on 11 December 2025 the mayor told the council he would like to see Valar annexed into the city (minutes; he had first raised annexation in September 2025). On 17 March 2026 a special service district asked Emery County that Valar's parcel be annexed into Orangeville (gov-022), and on 19 May the county sent annexation notices (gov-022); on 21 May the Castle Valley Special Service District board reviewed pending annexations including property near Orangeville 'that may be developed by Valor', noting recent state law changes that allow a streamlined annexation by landowner petition (minutes). The city's 11 June minutes record staff 'working on annexation requirements' and the mayor meeting Valar about annexation. On 9 July council minutes record staff 'working on Nuclear Energy Ordinance', and that the city had sent a draft of 'the nuclear energy industry ordinance' being coded to allow Valar to be annexed; the annexation process was to begin at the August meeting with a Valar representative present. The Planning and Zoning Commission's 16 July minutes record an agenda item 'Ordinance I-2 Advanced Energy and Manufacturing District', with Valar's Jess Housekeeper present as its representative: 'There needs to be a plan for an ordinance for this company and future companies', he 'explained the wants and needs for this company', a public meeting would need to be posted by 30 July in draft form, and 'Everything needs to go through the attorneys from the City and Valar.' The commission's later agendas (11 August, 8 September, 17 September work meeting) do not list the I-2 ordinance, and no public hearing on it was found in the council's or the planning commission's notices through the 8 October 2026 council notice (a hearing on a cemetery fee). On 13 August the mayor said annexation could begin once the sale is final (loc-014). The planning commission's 8 September agenda and the council's 10 September agenda list an 'Updated Annexation Policy', the council's item 'to reflect legislative changes'. At the county, commissioners said on 21 July that annexation would put the land under Orangeville's authority for services and future land-use decisions (ETV, 28 July).

In plain termsValar's growing Emery site is set to be moved from county control into the town of Orangeville. The town is writing a new zoning district, called I-2 'Advanced Energy and Manufacturing', written around this company, and its planning minutes say the draft goes through both the city's lawyers and Valar's. Zoning is what decides what can be built and where, so the rules for Valar's land are being drafted with Valar at the table. As of 29 September 2026 no public hearing on the new zone had been noticed; when one is, it will be residents' chance to comment.
verified 2026-09-29: Re-read all minutes, agendas and both notice lists: holds. Made the 8-10 Sept item exact (agenda listings, not recorded action), described Housekeeper as the minutes do, added the CVSSD May annexation discussion, and removed an uncited legal claim from the plain field.
newrecordconfirmed Utah approved up to $106.7M in tax credits for Valar in July 2026 (Emery County); the public agenda did not name it
2026-07-09 · csite-024 · Governor's Office of Economic Opportunity, Valar Atomics, Emery County · maximum REDTIF post-performance tax credit, 10 years: $106,737,499; projected capital investment (Emery County): $1,299,110,000

The Board of the Governor's Office of Economic Development approved, by unanimous consent on 9 July 2026, a REDTIF post-performance refundable tax credit for Valar Atomics Inc. of up to $106,737,499: 50% of new state tax revenue for 10 years, with projected capital investment of $1,299,110,000, 275 jobs at an average wage of $137,567, in Emery County. The credit is paid only after new revenue is receipted, is 'site specific and subject to local incentive participation', and needs a local incentive approved by the GOED Incentives Committee. The notice and agenda, posted 7 July, described the item only as a company in 'the energy and advanced manufacturing industry' (the same agenda named the three companies up for economic development zones); the board materials naming Valar were attached to the notice at 1:00 p.m. on 9 July, after the meeting, which was scheduled for 10 a.m. to noon. Utah's records law lets agencies protect records that would reveal incentive negotiations if disclosure would cause the company economic harm (63G-2-305(35)), and the July 9 minutes carry that label. Per the minutes, Valar's representatives spoke of a 'waterless data center in Orangeville' and plans 'to install additional commercial units in the area', and an Emery County commissioner spoke in support. No state incentive record for the Carbon County campus was found.

In plain termsThe state approved giving Valar back up to about $107 million in state taxes over ten years, paid only out of new state tax revenue and tied to job and wage targets; the board materials project a $1.3 billion investment and 275 jobs in Emery County. Per the minutes, Valar's representatives spoke of a data center in Orangeville and more commercial units in the area. Before the vote, the public agenda said only that an energy company was up for approval; the documents naming Valar were posted after the meeting. State law allows incentive talks to be kept confidential in some cases. The Carbon County campus is not part of this incentive.
verified 2026-09-29: Holds, with one addition. Re-read 2026-09-29: July 9 notice (posted 2026-07-07 15:18; attachments: agenda and June minutes added 7 July, board materials added 9 July 13:00, audio 13:05); agenda docx (no company named for incentives); board materials pp. 1-3; July 9 minutes (docx headed 'Incentive Committee Meeting Minutes' and 'PROTECTED BY 63G-2-305(35)', attached to the Sept 10 notice); Utah Code 63G-2-305(35). Unsourced expansion of 'REDTIF' removed. Named individuals other than officials are Valar staff speaking publicly for the company. Correction 2026-09-30 (source objectivity review): reworded the plain-language text.
newrecordconfirmed $106.7M state tax credit: Valar told the board it plans 'additional commercial units' and 'behind the meter' power sales
2026-07-09 · gov-033 · Governor's Office of Economic Opportunity (GOED) Board, Valar Atomics, Emery County Commission, Jordan Leonard, Harry Hansen, Cory Gardner · maximum REDTIF post-performance refundable tax credit approved for Valar (10 years): $106,737,499; projected capital investment in the Valar incentive application (Emery County): $1,299,110,000

Re-reading the GOED board's 9 July 2026 materials and minutes (csite-024 has the incentive terms): the executive summary describes a $1,299,110,000 Emery County project with 275 jobs averaging $137,567, and says the up-to-$106,737,499 REDTIF credit (half of new state tax revenue for 10 years, paid only after the revenue comes in) is 'site specific and subject to local incentive participation', with a local incentive proposal needing GOED Incentives Committee approval. Per the minutes, Valar's Harry Hansen cited the NVIDIA chip demonstration and 'a waterless data center in Orangeville'; Valar's Cory Gardner said Valar plans 'to install additional commercial units in the area', that the fastest path to turning reactors on is selling power 'behind the meter' to avoid interconnection queues, that its near-term strategy is 'behind-the-meter customers willing to pay a premium', and that no one has yet sold power from an advanced reactor in America. The minutes list Emery County Commissioner Jordan Leonard among the visitors under 'Valar Atomics' (they do not say why) and record him speaking in support. Set beside the record: three months earlier, at the county's 7 April hearing, the answer recorded to 'what incentives has the county given you?' was 'None', with a commissioner adding Valar had 'not even asked' for a tax incentive (gov-022); no local incentive for Valar appears on the Emery County Commission's or its Community Reinvestment Agency's agendas through September 2026 (Utah Public Notice Website scan, 29 Sept 2026); and DOE's legal basis for authorizing Ward 250 without the NRC is that pilot reactors do not produce commercial electric power (safe-030, gov-007), so sold power from 'commercial units' would need NRC licensing (csite-010).

In plain termsUtah's economic development board approved up to $106.7 million in future tax rebates for Valar, based on a $1.3 billion, 275-job plan in Emery County, far larger than the one-year test first described. To collect, Valar must actually create the jobs and pay the taxes, and a local incentive must also be approved; none has been found yet. At that meeting Valar spoke of more 'commercial units' and selling power directly to paying customers. Selling power is exactly what the federal shortcut does not cover, so those units would need a license from the NRC.
verified 2026-09-29: Re-read the GOED 9 July 2026 materials and minutes and the Emery 7 April minutes 2026-09-29; quotes and figures exact; a scan of 527 saved Emery notices found no Valar incentive item. Holds.
newrecordconfirmed Water: Valar says it has the shares it needs and seeks up to 1,000 more, in a year of critically low reservoirs
2026-07-09 · loc-017 · Valar Atomics, Orangeville City Council, Castle Valley Special Service District, Cottonwood Creek Consolidated Irrigation Company, Utah Division of Water Rights · CVSSD outside-district water connection fee approved for Valar (19 Feb 2026): $20,000

What local records show about Valar's water: 11 December 2025, Orangeville approved a future 8-inch water line for Valar's new building, Valar saying it 'acquired the necessary water shares', on condition that fees are paid and the correct shares turned in (minutes). 19 February 2026, the utility district approved a $20,000 connection contingent on all shares being submitted to Orangeville (loc-015). 9 July 2026, Orangeville minutes: the 1,000 water shares under discussion are 'still in the discussion phase' and not for the data center; Valar told the county on 21 July the extra shares would support future development on the land it is buying (mine-042). For scale, the mayor told the council in November 2025 that the city itself held 998.4 Class A and 94 Class B shares of Cottonwood Creek irrigation water and was still 89 shares short. On 16 July 2026 the utility district reported 'critically low reservoir levels' and Orangeville's secondary water at 233 acre-feet for the year. Which company's shares Valar holds or seeks, and how much water 1,000 shares represents, is not stated in any record read. Utah Division of Water Rights records, where a change of use would be filed and advertised, could not be searched: its search pages sit under a path its robots.txt closes to all automated readers (sources_not_read).

In plain termsValar says it already has the water for its current buildings and wants up to 1,000 more water shares for future growth. That is about as many shares as the whole town of Orangeville holds, though shares differ in size and nobody has said which kind Valar wants. The same summer, the local water district was warning of critically low reservoirs. When someone files an application with the State Engineer to take or change water, the state must advertise it in the local paper and people can protest; we could not search the state's water-rights records, so a resident should check them directly.
verified 2026-09-29: Re-read the Orangeville minutes (Nov 2025, Dec 2025, July 2026), CVSSD Feb and July minutes and ETV reports: holds. Replaced a quote that did not bear on water. The plain field's notice-and-protest statement now cites the statute and a notice.
newrecordconfirmed NVIDIA: an announced study of a 30 MW data center, no signed terms on record; the demo ran at 37% of a 100 kW reactor
2026-07-01 · plan-010 · Valar Atomics, NVIDIA, Max Ukropina

At the 1 July 2026 event at the Orangeville site (orig-042), ETV reported that Valar's Max Ukropina and NVIDIA representatives 'discussed a collaboration to explore' nuclear-powered AI factories, including a proposed 30-megawatt facility in Emery County, and that the reactor was raised to 37% power to supply electricity to a server hosting a website. KSL/Deseret (6 July) wrote that the companies are 'exploring the deployment' of a 30 MW data center fully powered by their reactor. Valar's Series B post (4 August) calls it 'a collaboration on a waterless 30 MW AI factory'. No contract, memorandum or NVIDIA release was found: a search of nvidia.com returned nothing on Valar, and no filing names a Valar-NVIDIA agreement. In July Valar told the state economic board of 'a waterless data center in Orangeville' (gov-033); in June its public-affairs representative told Orangeville the reactor's energy has no set purchaser (loc-016). Scale: 30 MW is 300 times Ward 250's 100 kW heat rating, and more than that in electricity, since only part of the heat becomes electricity. No reactor Valar has built or had authorized could supply it; it would take a fleet or much larger reactors, which for sold power would need NRC licensing (csite-010, safe-030). If ETV's 37% is of the 100 kW rating, the demonstration ran at roughly 37 kW of heat, and ETV says the electricity came from a thermoelectric generator, which turns only part of the heat into electricity; KSL/Deseret's line that the reactor 'is now generating 100 kilowatts of electricity' (orig-042) fits neither figure.

In plain termsNVIDIA and Valar said they are studying a data center powered by Valar reactors. Nobody has published a signed deal. The demo was real but tiny: the reactor was turned to about a third of its small output to run one server. A 30-megawatt data center would need about 300 times more power than this test reactor makes, so it depends on reactors that do not exist yet and would need a federal license to sell power.
verified 2026-09-29: Verify pass 2026-09-29: ETV and KSL quotes re-read and hold; Valar's own Series B wording added. The 37 kW figure is now stated as conditional on the percentage being of the 100 kW rating. The nvidia.com search was not re-run in this pass (web-search budget spent); it stands from the earlier pass as 'none found'.
newrecordconfirmed Customers: no power contract on record; Valar plans 'behind the meter' sales, and a Manila utility set talks
2026-07-01 · plan-013 · Valar Atomics, Meralco, NVIDIA, Utah Public Service Commission

No power purchase agreement, utility contract or named customer for Valar was found as of 29 September 2026. What the record shows instead: in June 2026 Valar's public-affairs representative told Orangeville the reactor's energy has no set destination or purchaser (loc-016); in July Valar told the state economic board its fastest path is selling to 'behind-the-meter customers willing to pay a premium', skipping grid interconnection (gov-033); in August it told a local business chamber it might build reactors for heavy industrial users, naming a local manufacturer 'strictly as an example' (ETV, 24 August); NVIDIA's role is an announced study (plan-010); and on 17 September, just before the Carbon lease vote, Valar's Harry Hansen told the Trust Lands board that Valar was at the point where site control 'becomes the next conversation when it comes to off-takers', after which it could talk about bringing in buyers for the power (auto-generated meeting transcript). Abroad, Bilyonaryo reported on 2 July 2026 that Meralco, the Philippines' largest electricity distributor, would hold talks with Valar 'in the coming days', according to its chief operating officer, who added that Meralco is open to other small-reactor technologies and that any investment must rest on proven designs. No agreement from those talks was found. No U.S. utility (Rocky Mountain Power/PacifiCorp or others) was found naming Valar in a search of the web; the Utah Public Service Commission's docket site answered with a bot check and could not be searched. Selling Ward 250's power is outside DOE's research-only basis for authorizing it (safe-030).

In plain termsNobody has signed up to buy power from Valar yet, at least not on any public record. The company's stated plan is to sell electricity directly to big users (factories, data centers) on their own sites, rather than through the power company. A large utility in the Philippines said it would talk with Valar. Talks are not a contract.
verified 2026-09-29: Verify pass 2026-09-29: Bilyonaryo re-read: talks 'in the coming days' per Meralco's EVP and COO Ronnie Aperocho; 'largest electricity distributor' is the article's wording. Orangeville minutes, ETV and the TLA auto-transcript quotes hold. psc.utah.gov answered with a Cloudflare bot check (not read). The web search for a U.S. utility naming Valar was not re-run in this pass. Manila Bulletin (403) and BusinessMirror (robots) are not used. Correction 2026-09-29 (wording review): re-reading process note moved to the internal log.
newanalysisconfirmed DOE's legal basis is 'not to produce commercial electric power'; Ward 250 made power for a chip, no sale is on record
2026-07-01 · safe-030 · U.S. Department of Energy, Valar Atomics, NVIDIA, Nuclear Innovation Alliance

EO 14301 places advanced reactors under DOE rather than NRC jurisdiction when DOE exercises sufficient control and they do 'not ... produce commercial electric power'. Valar says Ward 250 generated electricity on 1 July 2026, 'directly powering an NVIDIA chip' (orig-013; Deseret News reported the event, orig-042), and Valar and NVIDIA said they were exploring a 30 MW data center powered by Valar reactors (orig-042). No record read shows Ward 250 selling electricity. The Nuclear Innovation Alliance notes that the Atomic Energy Act lets DOE retain 'for its own account' the commercial application of an initial demonstration reactor, that section 44 governs the sale of electricity incidental to test and demonstration reactors, and that sales of electricity to third parties 'raise unresolved regulatory questions' for DOE and the NRC. DOE-STD-1271 says the DOE pathway is meant to accommodate 'leveraging into an NRC license'. On the record read, the July 1 demonstration stays inside the non-commercial line; any commercial use of Valar reactors would need NRC licensing (csite-010).

In plain termsThe reason DOE, not the NRC, can approve Ward 250 is that it is an experiment, not a commercial power plant. Using its electricity to run one computer chip in a demonstration is not selling power, and no sale has been found. The line would be crossed if a Valar reactor sold electricity to a customer such as a data center; that would bring in the NRC.
verified 2026-09-29: Re-read EO 14301 sec. 3, Castle Country, NIA and DOE-STD-1271 sec. 1 on 2026-09-29. Holds. Fixed the NIA paraphrase (section 44 and 'for its own account' are two separate points in NIA's text).
newrecordreported July 1, 2026 Orangeville event: Valar and NVIDIA announce they are exploring a 30 MW nuclear-powered data center
2026-07-01 · orig-042 · Valar Atomics, NVIDIA, Isaiah Taylor, Emy Lesofski, David Hinkins, Deseret News

Deseret News (Eva Terry, July 1, 2026) reported an event at Valar's Orangeville site with Taylor, an NVIDIA energy-policy director, Utah energy office director Emy Lesofski and State Sen. David Hinkins, where the companies said they are exploring a 30 megawatt data center fully powered by Valar's reactors. The article says Ward 250 was 'now generating 100 kilowatts of electricity'; that wording cannot match the 100 kW thermal limit in Valar's safety agreement (orig-034): a reactor limited to 100 kW of heat cannot deliver 100 kW of electricity, because turning heat into electricity always loses part of it. The figure is most likely the thermal rating reported as electric. The article quoted no independent expert or critic.

In plain termsOn July 1, 2026 at the Emery County site, Valar and NVIDIA said they are exploring a 30-megawatt data center run on Valar reactors. The newspaper's '100 kilowatts of electricity' cannot be right for a reactor limited to 100 kilowatts of heat, because only part of the heat can become electricity.
verified 2026-09-29: Verify pass 2 (2026-09-29): Deseret re-read: event, speakers (an NVIDIA energy-policy director, Lesofski, Hinkins), 30 MW data-center study and '100 kilowatts of electricity' all present. The inference is now stated with its reason.
newcompany claimconfirmed Valar told Orangeville its second building is a fuel plant that will make it 'the largest' US maker of that fuel
2026-06-11 · loc-016 · Valar Atomics, Harry Hansen, Orangeville City Council

Orangeville City Council minutes, 11 June 2026, public comment: Valar's Harry Hansen, who said he has a background with the state energy office, answered council questions. Asked how many local workers were hired, he said he would get an accurate number. Asked whether Valar's second building is another reactor, he said it is not: Valar will manufacture its own fuel there, the fuel is 'extremely safe', and 'Once completed they will be the largest manufacturer of this fuel in the United States'. Asked whether the energy would go to data centers, he said data centers 'could be purchasers' but the energy has no set destination or purchaser yet. Set beside the record: the fuel building matches the lab's January 2026 release and Valar's QA plan for a 'Valarin' TRISO fuel facility (loc-003, orig-038); no DOE safety authorization for the fuel line has been made public (safe-031); the 'largest' claim is about the future and cannot be tested now; selling Ward 250's energy would fall outside DOE's research-only basis for authorizing it (safe-030).

In plain termsAsked directly by the town council, Valar said its second building is not a reactor but a factory to make reactor fuel, and that it will be the biggest of its kind in the country. That answer was given in public and matches the company's own papers. No federal safety approval for that fuel factory was found in the public record as of 29 September 2026. The 'biggest' claim is a promise, not something the record can check yet.
verified 2026-09-29: Re-read the 11 June minutes: holds. Removed a personal detail (hometown). Plain field now dates the missing approval.
newrecordconfirmed The 'test site' is becoming a multi-company nuclear campus: Natura and Nuclea also have state approvals at the lab
2026-06-02 · gov-031 · Utah San Rafael Energy Lab, Utah Office of Energy Development, Natura Resources, NuCube Energy, Nuclea Energy USA, Valar Atomics

State records show the San Rafael lab hosting or courting several nuclear developers besides Valar: NuCube (MOU with OED, 6 May 2025 per OED's slides; named with Valar to legislators in June 2025, gov-019), which POWER reports was instead selected with Idaho State University in April 2026 for DOE's Launch Pad USA, to site its test reactor on ISU's Pocatello campus; Natura Resources, which holds an NRC construction permit for a molten-salt reactor in Texas and whose project at the lab (medical isotopes, a planned test reactor) the Energy Research Board approved the same day as Valar's (13 Aug 2025, gov-013), and which OED told legislators is leasing 'the majority of the space' at the lab (Oct 2025); and Nuclea Energy, a Canadian company, whose MOU to explore siting a 3.5 MW electric test reactor the board approved on 11 February 2026 and OED signed on 2 June 2026, with OED offering to 'support licensing conversations' with DOE and the NRC and to help explore deployment 'beyond test reactors'. Valar itself proposed a 10 MW gas-fired heater for power-cycle tests (gov-014), is buying the 112-acre parcel next door for fuel fabrication and manufacturing (gov-022), and plans a TRISO fuel line (safe-031). The lab told its board in February 2026 it was adding perimeter fencing and ID checks 'to meet DOE standards'. No public safety analysis or environmental review for these other projects was found in the records read, as of 2026-09-29.

In plain termsEmery County residents were first presented one small test reactor for about a year of tests (orig-045). The state's own records show the lab is being built up as a nuclear campus with several companies: another reactor developer renting most of the lab, a third company exploring a larger test reactor, Valar's fuel-making plans on the land next door, and a big gas-fired test rig. Each may need its own approvals, and the public should expect more than one project there.
verified 2026-09-29: Re-read the Nuclea MOU, Feb 2026 and Aug 2025 board minutes, OED's Oct 2025 slides and POWER 2026-09-29; quotes exact. Fixed: NuCube's test reactor is now reported headed to Idaho State University, so it is no longer listed as lined up at the lab; 'none on file' softened to 'none found'.
newrecordconfirmed Emery's other nuclear site: Green River's Blue Castle plan revived with Holtec reactors; Valar also applied nearby
2026-05-27 · loc-020 · Blue Castle Holdings, Holtec International, Fulcrum Point Holdings, Hi Tech Solutions, HEAL Utah, Kane County Water Conservancy District, San Juan County Water Conservancy District, Jordan Leonard

Nuclear siting in Emery County is not only Valar. Near Green River, Blue Castle Holdings leased water rights totalling 53,600 acre-feet from the Kane County (29,600) and San Juan County (24,000) water conservancy districts for a proposed nuclear power plant; the Utah Court of Appeals affirmed approval of the change applications in July 2016 against a challenge by HEAL Utah and others, noting the project still needed an environmental review and an NRC early site permit application (2016 UT App 153). On 27 May 2026 Fulcrum Point Holdings (a Hi Tech Solutions affiliate) announced a joint venture with Blue Castle (KSL; Holtec's release is dated 28 May and Utah Business carried the Fulcrum release on 29 May) to take the project through federal licensing with Holtec SMR-300 reactors, which can use air cooling; Emery Commissioner Jordan Leonard and the governor's energy adviser are quoted in support. Neither release gives an NRC filing date; the Fulcrum release's company description puts the multi-unit Blue Castle project at up to 2,200 megawatts, while KSL noted the announcement did not specify the Green River capacity. KSL (27-28 May) reported HEAL Utah's concerns about water use, the Colorado River and waste. At the 30 June 2026 Carbon/Emery economic development committee, a Hi Tech Solutions director said the site had been studied, land and access secured, and the project was in the application process (ETV). The Emery Commission voted in September 2025 to support Green River as a site for a state nuclear project (gov-021). Separately, Valar filed a 10,270-acre 'Green River Gigasite' reactor and data-center application with BLM in February 2026, which it later told a reporter it had dropped while BLM still lists it pending (mine-006, mine-008). No record read connects the Blue Castle project to Valar. The NRC's site refused our reader, so no NRC filing for either could be checked.

In plain termsGreen River, at the east end of Emery County, has had a nuclear plant proposal since the 2000s, backed by a large block of river water rights a court upheld in 2016. In May 2026 new partners revived it with smaller reactors that can be air-cooled. Valar separately applied for a huge tract near Green River and then said it had dropped it. So Emery County faces two or more nuclear proposals besides the test reactor, each on its own track.
verified 2026-09-29: Re-read the court opinion, both releases and KSL: holds, except 'neither release gives capacity' (the Fulcrum release's boilerplate says up to 2,200 MW), now corrected; announcement date set to 27 May per KSL. Correction 2026-09-29 (wording review): tool names removed from the note and source title.
newrecordreported USU Eastern: a new engineering program is coming to Price; Valar appears in its leadership academy, no formal tie found
2026-05-26 · loc-022 · USU Eastern, Valar Atomics, Carbon/Emery Economic Development Committee

ETV News (28 May 2026) reported that at the 26 May Carbon/Emery economic development group, a USU Eastern deputy vice president said the Price campus is hiring two or three faculty to launch an engineering curriculum, starting with fundamentals in fall 2026, aiming to enroll students by fall 2027. At the 30 June meeting, the new USU Eastern engineering program was noted as favorable for a nuclear plant and its employees (ETV, 6 July). A USU Eastern release printed by ETV (26 March 2026) says Valar spoke at the Eastern Leaders Academy's economic development day. A USU Eastern professor's housing study counted Valar's workforce (loc-010), and USU Eastern hosted an Economic Development Summit in October 2025 (ETV, 6 Oct 2025). No USU Eastern training agreement, nuclear technician program or funding tie with Valar was found in the records read; Valar's Orangeville job posts ask for years of experience and several say 'willing to relocate to Orangeville' (job board, 29 Sept; loc-019), and a Valar radiation-protection staffer told the Trust Lands board he would hire and train local radiation technicians (ppl-009).

In plain termsThe local college in Price is starting an engineering program, and local leaders see it as feeding energy jobs, including nuclear ones. We found no formal partnership between the college and Valar. Valar's Utah job posts ask for experienced people, several invite applicants to move to Orangeville, and a Valar staffer has said it will train some local technicians.
verified 2026-09-29: Re-read the ETV items: holds. Made the USU title exact and sourced the relocation point to the job board directly; plain field no longer says Valar 'mostly' recruits from elsewhere (not shown).
newrecordconfirmed Fuel today: HALEU TRISO approved for shipment from a federal site in Nevada; its maker and owner are not public
2026-05-20 · plan-014 · Valar Atomics, U.S. Department of Energy, Savannah River National Laboratory, National Criticality Experiments Research Center, Los Alamos National Laboratory

The only fuel supply for Valar on the record is DOE's: a Safety Evaluation Report approved 20 May 2026 lets Savannah River's shipping package carry 'limited shipments' of HALEU TRISO fuel compacts from the National Criticality Experiments Research Center in Nevada to the Ward 250 site, at most 24 packages, one Valar-designed graphite fuel block each, expiring 30 June 2027 or when shipments end (safe-010, safe-011, safe-012). The report describes each block as 170 TRISO compacts holding 234.94 grams of uranium-235 at under 20% enrichment. Valar's own safety agreement (NSDA, October 2025, Table 6) lists the fuel enrichment as '4.95% U-235' on the basis of 'LEU limits'; the two documents describe different fuel, and no document read explains the difference (disc-001). No public record read gives the dates the fuel actually moved (plan-025). Neither that report nor Valar's NOVA release nor World Nuclear News's NOVA report (21 November 2025) names who fabricated the TRISO particles or compacts, or who owns the high-assay uranium; Valar is not in DOE's three announced HALEU allocation rounds (gov-008). Valar's Series B post says it 'will not rely on outside suppliers' and will make fuel in labs beside its reactors (orig-070), and its Carbon plan has uranium shipped in as HALEU, LEU+ or LEU (csite-007). But making TRISO still needs enriched uranium from an enrichment plant; Valar has no enrichment capacity, and a web search in the earlier pass found no supply contract with any U.S. enricher (Centrus, Urenco, Orano, General Matter). For comparison, World Nuclear News reported on 18 September 2026 that the fuel for Antares's criticality test, another DOE pilot reactor, was supplied by BWX Technologies, and that Antares had signed a multi-year HALEU supply contract with Centrus (the article gives no signing date). Valar is one of 84 signers of DOE's Defense Production Act fuel-cycle pact (gov-001), which is a framework, not a supply contract.

In plain termsDOE approved shipping Valar's uranium fuel from a federal nuclear site in Nevada, in special drums. Valar's own safety paperwork lists the fuel at 4.95 percent enrichment, while DOE's shipping approval allows up to 19.9 percent; the two describe different fuel, and nothing we read explains why. Nobody has said publicly who made that fuel or who owns the uranium in it. Valar says it will make its own fuel from now on, but even so it has to buy enriched uranium from someone, because it cannot enrich uranium itself. No such purchase deal has been made public.
verified 2026-09-29: Verify pass 2026-09-29: DOE SER (9979 R20 LA1) re-read: NCERC to Ward 250 site, 24 packages, 170 compacts and 234.94 g U-235 per block at under 20%, expires 30 June 2027. Fixed: 'shipped' -> 'approved for shipment' (no shipment record is public); Antares contract date was the report date. Added the NSDA's 4.95% entry beside DOE's HALEU (disc-001). Negative search for an enrichment contract not re-run in this pass (web-search budget spent). Correction 2026-09-29 (calculation audit): plain: 'just under 20 percent' now 'up to 19.9 percent' (a ceiling).
newrecordconfirmed How Emery County approved selling Valar the 112-acre lab-side parcel: bid rule amended, then a $394,500 direct sale approved
2026-05-19 · gov-022 · Emery County Commission, Emery County Local Building Authority, Valar Atomics, Utah San Rafael Energy Lab, Dennis Worwood, Keven Jensen, Jordan Leonard, Max Ukropina · sale price of parcel 04-0019-0030 from Emery County / LBA to Valar Atomics (average of two appraisals): $394,500

From the Emery County Commission's minutes. 20 Jan 2026: the commission began 'the disposition process' for parcel 04-0019-0030 ('the property next to the Research Center') 'solely for the purpose of economic development'. 17 Feb: a letter of support for Valar passed; the MOU for Valar's site-suitability testing on the parcel was 'Tabled' (the agenda listing is in orig-046). 17 March: the county's property ordinance required 30 days' notice to neighbors, posting three weeks before sale, and 'sealed bids'; the commission added a section letting it sell under state statute 17-78-103 (notice, public comment and fair value by two appraisals, no bidding) when a parcel is not posted within 30 days; the county attorney said he had not reviewed the new wording and Commissioner Worwood voted no for that reason; the same meeting then approved selling the parcel to Valar under 17-78-103, subject to a hearing and two appraisals, and let Valar use it as a staging area if the county were released from liability. 7 April hearing: Valar said it wants the land for 'Fuel fabrication and manufacturing' and possible temporary employee housing; the state lab director said the state also wanted to buy it, for 'contiguous ownership to maintain safety', and asked whether a bid process could be requested; Commissioner Worwood answered that the county followed state requirements and called the sale 'an intermediate step' while Valar looks for 'a larger piece of property with water'; asked about incentives, the answer recorded was 'None'. 19 May: the commission (2-0) approved the purchase and sale agreement at $394,500, the average of two appraisals, sent annexation notices for the parcel and the lab parcel into Orangeville, and passed a resolution removing the parcel from the Inland Port project area (gov-023). 7 July: a 30-day due-diligence extension, already signed by one commissioner, was ratified; he said the land 'has been sold' to Valar. Other items in these minutes: on 17 March a local special service district asked that Valar annex the parcel into Orangeville, and the sheriff reported a recent meeting with Valar on safety. No recorded deed was read (open question).

In plain termsEmery County approved selling Valar about 112 acres next to the state lab for $394,500, roughly $3,500 an acre, set by averaging two appraisals. The county's own rule had called for sealed bids; the commission changed that rule at the same meeting where it started the Valar sale, before its attorney had reviewed the change. The state lab said it wanted the land too, to keep ownership around the reactor in one hand for safety, and asked for bidding; the county went ahead with Valar. Valar says it wants the land for making nuclear fuel and manufacturing. The sale followed state law, but it was not a competitive sale.
verified 2026-09-29: Re-read the Jan 20, Feb 17, Mar 17, Apr 7, May 19 and Jul 7 2026 minutes and Utah Code 17-78-103 (version effective 6 May 2026: notice, public comment, two-appraisal fair value, no bidding requirement) 2026-09-29; all quotes exact. Holds; added two related items from the same minutes. Correction 2026-09-29 (wording review): sale wording now 'approved selling' (no deed read).
newrecordconfirmed On paper Ward 250 is temporary: 12 months of running, then cooldown and teardown; its two papers differ on length
2026-04-22 · plan-003 · Valar Atomics, U.S. Department of Energy

Valar's Nuclear Safety Design Agreement (October 2025) describes a lifecycle of about 18 months from authorization through decommissioning: a pre-operational phase, 12 months of nuclear operations in test campaigns, then defueling and decommissioning that returns the site to unrestricted use. DOE's environmental determination (22 April 2026) describes a 24-month research program: about 12 months of reactor operation, 6 months of in-vessel cooldown and 6 months of decommissioning, after which the single core of spent fuel goes in dry casks to an unnamed 'DOE-approved facility' (safe-023). DOE's agreement with Valar runs from October 2025 to 4 July 2027 (orig-055). If operations are counted from criticality in June 2026, the 12 months end around June 2027, and DOE's schedule puts the end of decommissioning around mid-2028; no record read gives the actual planned end date. Set beside this, Valar now describes the Utah site as permanent: its head of projects told the state trust-lands board the lab is 'no longer just a test facility' (ppl-006), it is buying the neighboring 112-acre parcel (gov-022), it was approved for a state tax credit that requires it to stay 10 years (fund-017), and its Castle Country page says 'we're ready to build more'. At the 1 July 2026 event Taylor said the fuel inside Ward 250 would let it keep running for 165 years (KSL/Deseret, 6 July); that describes the fuel's capacity at very low power, not the approved plan, which is about 12 months of operation with no refueling (DOE). The two are not necessarily in conflict (the test reactor can be removed while the company stays), but no public document says what replaces Ward 250 or whether Ward 250 will actually be torn down on the stated schedule.

In plain termsThe official paperwork treats Ward 250 like a science experiment with an end date: run it for about a year, let it cool, take it apart, ship the used fuel away and leave clean ground. Valar's own safety document says the whole thing takes about 18 months; DOE's environmental paper says 24. Meanwhile the company tells local officials it is here to stay, and at a public event its CEO said the fuel could last 165 years; the approved plan is about one year of running. Both can be true, but nobody has published what comes after the test reactor, or a firm date for taking it down. The safety agreement's 18 months does not fit its own schedule: from the end of its review, the Table 7 pre-operational period plus 12 months of operation already runs about 19.75 months, before any decommissioning, unless the 18 months is counted from startup. DOE's 24 months fits that startup reading.
verified 2026-09-29: Verify pass 2026-09-29: NSDA p. 8 (18 months; 12 months of operations) and DOE CX (24 months: 12+6+6; spent fuel to a 'DOE-approved facility') re-read and hold. 'Took' a tax credit changed to 'was approved for' (fund-017 records board approval). Taylor's 165-year remark added from KSL. Correction 2026-09-29 (calculation audit): plain adds that the NSDA's 18 months does not fit its own schedule.
newcompany claimconfirmed Valar told residents 'every design' is reviewed and approved by DOE; true for the test reactor, not its commercial plans
2026-04-07 · gov-039 · Valar Atomics, Max Ukropina, Emery County Commission, U.S. Department of Energy, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission

At the same 7 April 2026 Emery County hearing, a resident asked about safety buffer zones; Valar's representative answered that every design has to be reviewed and approved by the Department of Energy. Asked about 'turmoil' between the state and the NRC, Valar's Max Ukropina said past laws had been burdensome and that President Trump had loosened some regulations. Set beside the record: for Ward 250 the answer holds, since DOE alone authorizes it (safe-001, gov-005). For what Valar has described next it is incomplete: three months later Valar told the state's incentive board it plans 'additional commercial units in the area' and behind-the-meter power sales (gov-033); the executive order behind the DOE route covers reactors that do not produce commercial electric power (gov-005); and DOE's own releases, and Hogan Lovells' summary of the law, place later commercial licensing with the NRC (gov-007, gov-032, csite-010). DOE's Launch Pad USA pathway can authorize non-federal sites, but no record read shows Valar using it for another site (gov-010).

In plain termsAsked about safety at a public hearing, Valar said every design must be reviewed and approved by the Energy Department. That is true of the test reactor running now. But Valar has told state officials it plans commercial reactors that sell power, and under the President's own order, reactors that produce commercial power fall outside the Energy Department's shortcut. Those would need a license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission instead.
verified 2026-09-29: New in the verify pass 2026-09-29; all three sources read that day. The resident who asked is described, not named.
newcompany claimreported Emery expansion as told in public: more land 'to expand their factory', plans 'not firm', a 10-acre staging yard
2026-04-07 · plan-024 · Valar Atomics, Emery County Commission

ETV's report (9 April 2026) of Emery County's 7 April hearing on selling the 112-acre parcel beside the lab says Valar's representatives explained they needed more land to expand their factory and ready the reactor, and, asked what they planned to build, replied that plans were not firm yet but they were considering expansion and 'maybe even housing'. Later in the same meeting the commission approved a real-estate use agreement letting Valar use 10 acres south of the lab as a laydown and staging area during construction, with a waiver of liability. The county's own minutes add that Valar named 'fuel fabrication and manufacturing' for the parcel and that a commissioner called the sale an 'intermediate step' while Valar looked for a larger property with water (gov-022, gov-038); the sale price was $394,500 and closing was not confirmed as of mid-August (loc-014); Orangeville is drafting an advanced-energy zoning district and annexation for the land (loc-013); Valar is seeking up to 1,000 more water shares for future development there (loc-017). The Wellington lease map was drawn two days after this hearing (mine-048).

In plain termsValar is buying a large piece of county land next to the lab. When residents asked what would go there, the company said its plans were not settled: more factory space, maybe housing. A county commissioner described the purchase as a stepping stone while Valar looked for a bigger site with water. Two days after the hearing, the state mapped a Carbon County lease for Valar; the first public record we found that names Valar for that site is from August 2026 (csite-018, csite-028).
verified 2026-09-29: Verify pass 2026-09-29: ETV (9 April 2026) re-read; quotes exact; hearing date (7 April) from the county minutes in gov-038. Fixed: the plain text said the public 'did not learn of' the lease until August; a notice without Valar's name was posted in April (csite-032), so it now says the first record naming Valar for the site is from August.
newanalysisconfirmed Water use: Valar told Castle Dale 'about 10 acre-feet for industrial use'; DOE's review lists only domestic water
2026-03-12 · loc-025 · Valar Atomics, Jess Housekeeper, Castle Dale City, U.S. Department of Energy

Castle Dale City Council minutes of 12 March 2026 record Valar's director of Utah operations, Jess Housekeeper, saying 'The reactor requires minimal water—about 10 acre-feet for industrial use' and that it mainly uses helium cooling. The minutes give no time period for the 10 acre-feet. If it is a yearly figure, 10 acre-feet is about 3.26 million gallons, or roughly 8,900 gallons a day on average. DOE's categorical exclusion for Ward 250, signed six weeks later (22 April 2026), describes water use only as 'less than 1000 gallons/day for domestic use', says no process water is discharged and that sanitary waste goes through the lab's infrastructure, and does not mention any industrial water use. The utility district's minutes say Valar asked for restroom sewer service only, with no process water (loc-015). The figures may describe different things (the reactor alone versus the whole site with its fuel laboratory, consumption versus a water-right allotment, or a yearly versus a one-time amount); no record read reconciles them. Separately, Valar says it holds the shares for its current needs and seeks up to 1,000 more for future development (loc-017).

In plain termsValar told one town council its reactor needs about 10 acre-feet of water for industrial use. The minutes do not say per year; if it is yearly, that is roughly nine times the daily amount in the federal environmental review, which counts only drinking and restroom water. Both may be true if they measure different things, but the public document the federal government relied on does not mention the industrial water at all. Asking DOE and Valar which figure covers what would settle it.
verified 2026-09-29: Re-read the Castle Dale minutes (page images), the DOE exclusion and CVSSD minutes: quotes exact. Corrected an assumption: the minutes give no time period for 10 acre-feet, so the per-year conversion is now conditional in detail and plain.
newrecordconfirmed Housing: a USU Eastern study warned new Valar and mine workers will strain scarce rentals and homes
2026-02 · loc-010 · USU Eastern, Valar Atomics, Fossil Rock mine

ETV News (24 Feb 2026) reported a USU Eastern professor's presentation to the Emery County Business Chamber's housing committee on growth in Carbon and Emery counties: about 1,100 temporary units (motel rooms and RV spaces), roughly 100 homes for sale in Carbon and 20 in Emery, median price above $400,000; Valar's nuclear test project planning to employ about 40 technicians and contractors who would compete for short-term rentals; and 300-400 miners expected at Fossil Rock looking for long-term housing. The same professor updated the Carbon/Emery economic development committee on his 'Housing Analysis for Carbon and Emery Counties' on 27 January 2026, prompting discussion of population growth from Valar and Fossil Rock (ETV, 30 Jan; that meeting heard of 170 homes for sale in Carbon and 18 in Emery). At Emery's 7 April hearing Valar named possible housing among uses for the land it was buying (ETV; gov-022). The larger job numbers Valar gave the state in July 2026 (275, loc-004) and the Carbon campus plan are not reflected in any housing study read. Orangeville's council adopted a 180-day moratorium on new short-term rental applications on 8 January 2026, a councilman saying 'with the nuclear hiring staff' the housing effect was unknown (minutes), and at a May 2026 public hearing on rental rules a councilman said more housing will be needed to support the mines and Valar (minutes).

In plain termsA local university study says the area is short of affordable homes and rentals, and that new workers at Valar and the coal mine will push prices up. The study counted Valar at about 40 workers; the company's later plans are far bigger than that.
verified 2026-09-29: Re-read ETV 24 Feb and the Orangeville minutes: holds. The January 2026 committee claim had no cited source; found and added ETV 30 Jan, which supports it. The May remark was a councilman's, now said so. Date set to Feb 2026 (month): ETV does not give the meeting date.
newrecordconfirmed Four applications for state site-study permits on about 8,300 acres for 'industrial and manufacturing development' were posted Feb. 19, 2026; none names the applicant
2026-02-19 · dir-035 · Utah Trust Lands Administration, Resource Development Coordinating Committee, Utah Division of Wildlife Resources

On 19 February 2026 the state's Resource Development Coordinating Committee (RDCC) posted four applications for Trust Lands right-of-entry (site-study) permits as projects 87096 to 87099, numbered 7672, 7674, 7675 and 7676. Comments were due 3 March and the stated start was 6 March. Each notice says that Trust Lands 'has received a Right-of-Entry (ROE) permit application' for cultural-resource surveys, geotechnical investigations and similar studies 'to evaluate the feasibility of a potential industrial and manufacturing development', and that 'No permanent development is proposed under the Right-of-Entry authorization.' Trust Lands' permit maps, dated 18 February 2026, give the areas: 7672, 1,812.94 acres near Green River (T20S R15E and T21S R15-16E, Emery County); 7674, 5,381.59 acres south and west of Price (T14-15S R9-10E, Carbon County); 7675, 634.32 acres, nearly all of Section 16, T14S R11E, north of Wellington (Carbon County; the map leaves out a small southeast corner); 7676, 487.83 acres in Sections 2 and 16, T16S R13E (Emery County). That is 8,316.68 acres in all. The notices record that local governments were contacted on 19 February. The only state comments were Division of Wildlife Resources recommendations of 3 March 2026: three of the areas are crucial year-long pronghorn habitat; white-tailed prairie dogs, burrowing owls and kit foxes could occur; and hawks are known to nest near two of the areas. No applicant is named in the four notices, the four maps or the comment letters, and no record read shows the permits were issued: the register lists all four as 'State Comment Published'.

In plain termsIn February the state logged four applications for permits to survey and test about 8,300 acres of state land in Carbon and Emery counties for possible industrial development. The public records do not say who applied, or show that the permits were issued. One of the four covers nearly all of the square mile where the state later approved leasing 480 acres to Valar.
verified 2026-09-30: Read 30 Sept 2026: the RDCC records (all fields; dates converted from epoch ms, UTC and Mountain time), all four permit maps (raster PDFs, read as images; acreage legends zoomed at full resolution) and the four comment letters in full. The acreages sum to 8,316.68. Copies are archived with checksums. Skeptic pass 2026-09-30 (two independent checks): applications not issued permits; 'nearly all' of Section 16; areas recomputed on the ellipsoid.
newrecordconfirmed Near Green River, one of permit application 7672's sections (applicant not named) is state land that Valar's BLM application surrounds
2026-02-18 · dir-037 · Utah Trust Lands Administration, Bureau of Land Management, Valar Atomics

Right-of-entry permit application 7672 (1,812.94 acres; Trust Lands permit map, 18 February 2026) lies within Sections 32 and 36 of T20S R15E, Sections 10 and 11 of T21S R15E and Section 6 of T21S R16E, near Green River in Emery County. The permit map file is named for, and draws beside it, Special Use Lease Agreement No. 1622 (2,441.03 acres); no record read names that lease's holder. Overlaid on BLM's case map for Valar's pending 'Green River Gigasite' right-of-way application (UTUT106784007), Section 32 of T20S R15E lies wholly inside the application's outer boundary and is the only hole in the case map (about 637 acres): state land the application surrounds. The case map also covers about 467 acres of Section 6, T21S R16E (the part that is not state land); the permit application's state land there lies outside it. Sections 36, 10 and 11 lie outside it; they border it, but no part falls inside it. No record read names the applicant for 7672 or shows the permit was issued. BLM still lists Valar's application as pending; Valar told a reporter it has decided not to pursue the site (mine-008).

In plain termsNear Green River, one of the four February permit applications covers a square mile of state land that Valar's federal application surrounds on all sides. The records do not say who applied. BLM still lists Valar's application as pending, though Valar told a reporter it has decided not to pursue the site.
verified 2026-09-30: Computed 30 Sept 2026 from BLM's survey-grid sections and BLM's case map for UTUT106784007 as saved on 29 Sept 2026 (UTC; 28 Sept local time); BLM's case server refused a new request on 30 Sept (HTTP 403), which was not worked around. On an ellipsoidal equal-area computation the case map has three outer parts (about 13,780, 199 and 82 acres) and one hole, Section 32 (about 637 acres). Sections 36 (T20S R15E) and 2 (T21S R15E) are notches in its edge, not holes. Every figure and sentence was checked twice, independently, against the records. Skeptic pass 2026-09-30 (two independent checks): applications not issued permits; 'nearly all' of Section 16; areas recomputed on the ellipsoid.
newrecordconfirmed Feb 2026 Emery County agenda: support letter for Valar and an MOU for site testing on a county parcel
2026-02-17 · orig-046 · Valar Atomics, Emery County Commission

The Emery County Commission's February 17, 2026 meeting notice lists two Valar items: approving or denying a county letter of support to Valar Atomics, and approving or denying an MOU letting Valar perform site suitability testing on parcel 04-0019-0030. This indicates Valar was already studying a site in Emery County beyond the state lab by early 2026. Valar's Castle Country page says the commission backed the project unanimously. The outcome of the MOU item and the parcel's location are not given in the notice; see local.json.

In plain termsIn February 2026 Emery County's agenda listed a support letter for Valar and a deal letting Valar test a county parcel for a possible second site. The parcel is about the size of the 110 acres Valar later said it was buying (mine-046).
verified 2026-09-29: Verify pass 2 (2026-09-29): Utah Public Notice page re-read: February 17, 2026 agenda with the support letter and the parcel 04-0019-0030 MOU. Castle Country page still says the commission backed the project unanimously. Match.
newrecordconfirmed Feb 2026: state board OKs first phase of a Valar-funded $20M, 10 MW gas-fired heater at the lab to test CO2 power
2026-02-11 · gov-014 · Utah Energy Research Board, Valar Atomics, Utah San Rafael Energy Lab, Jaron Wallace · Valar-funded supercritical CO2 demonstration project (as presented): $20,000,000; Phase 1 design and planning approved: $400,000

Minutes of the Utah Energy Research Board's 11 February 2026 meeting (held at the lab in Orangeville and online; agenda item 'Valar Supercritical CO2 Demonstration'): lab director Jaron Wallace presented a Valar proposal to build a 10 MW thermal natural-gas-powered heater to test supercritical CO2 power generation and other technologies; Valar would fund the whole $20 million project, which 'will eventually become the property of the lab', and asked for completion by June 2026. Members questioned the June timeline and asked for risk management and contract exit clauses; the board voted to enter an agreement for 'Phase 1', the first $400,000 of design, engineering and execution planning, and to re-evaluate before construction (Phase 2). The same meeting heard that Valar was 'on track for a July 4th operational deadline', that the lab was growing from five to eight employees, and that new perimeter fencing and ID checks were being added 'to meet DOE standards'. The board's 13 May 2026 minutes record no Phase 2 vote, and its 12 August 2026 agenda lists no item on the project. This project is not mentioned in any Valar document or state release read, and no air-quality permit for a 10 MW gas heater was found (DAQ's lists could not be searched, carbon_site.json).

In plain termsBesides the reactor, Valar asked the state board to let it build a large natural-gas heater at the lab, about 10 megawatts of heat, to test a way of turning heat into electricity using carbon dioxide instead of steam. Valar would pay the roughly $20 million and the equipment would end up belonging to the state lab. The board approved only a first design step and wanted exit clauses. It shows Valar's activity at the lab is wider than the one reactor the public hears about.
verified 2026-09-29: Re-read the 11 Feb 2026 minutes and notice 2026-09-29; quotes exact (the minutes spell it 'Valor'). Holds; the 'no Phase 2 vote' point now cites the May 2026 minutes and the August 2026 agenda, both read.
newrecordconfirmed Toward electricity: a Valar-funded 10 MW gas-fired test heater (design only so far) and eight turbine job openings
2026-02-11 · plan-018 · Valar Atomics, Utah Energy Research Board, Utah San Rafael Energy Research Center · Valar-funded supercritical-CO2 test heater, proposed: $20,000,000; Phase 1 design approved: $400,000

Ward 250 is not built to supply the grid: its July 2026 electricity demonstration used a thermoelectric generator and ran one server (ETV; plan-010). The next step Valar has shown is a heat-to-electricity program. On 11 February 2026 the Utah Energy Research Board heard a Valar proposal, presented by the lab director, to build a 10 MW (thermal) natural-gas-powered heater at the lab to test supercritical-CO2 power generation; Valar would fund the whole $20 million, the equipment would become lab property, and Valar asked for completion by June 2026. The board approved only a $400,000 'Phase 1' of design and planning, to re-evaluate before construction (gov-014). No Phase 2 approval, air permit or completion was found. Valar's job board (29 September 2026) has eight turbomachinery roles in Torrance for a 'secondary loop Brayton cycle' on helium, supercritical CO2 or air, with 'a purpose-built test facility program' (plan-011); the posts do not say where that facility will be. DOE's environmental review of Ward 250 says 'No combustion processes occur' at the reactor; a gas-fired heater at the same lab would be a separate project with its own review, and none was found.

In plain termsTo make useful electricity, heat from a reactor has to spin a turbine. Valar has not built that part yet. It proposed a $20 million gas-fired heater at the Emery lab to test such a turbine without a reactor, but the state board only approved design work, not construction. Valar is hiring turbine engineers in California for a test facility whose location it has not said.
verified 2026-09-29: Verify pass 2026-09-29: Energy Research Board minutes re-read (the minutes spell the company 'Valor'); $20M, 10 MW thermal, June 2026 request, $400,000 Phase 1 only. Fixed: the headline called eight job openings an '8-person team'; the unsourced claim about Ward 250's power conversion was replaced with ETV's report.
newrecordconfirmed Valar is on DOE's HALEU Consortium member list, a free, open industry group, not a fuel allocation
2025-12-30 · dir-033 · U.S. Department of Energy, Valar Atomics

DOE's Office of Nuclear Energy lists Valar Atomics among HALEU Consortium members on a page last modified 30 December 2025. The page says 'Membership is free and is open to U.S. entities' involved in any stage of the nuclear fuel cycle that want to partner with DOE on HALEU availability, and that they apply by email. Membership is not a HALEU allocation. Valar is not named in any of DOE's three announced allocation rounds (gov-008). No record read names the supplier of Ward 250's fuel; dir-028 sets out why it is most likely the CNPS stock. (Updates gov-008.)

In plain termsValar belongs to DOE's HALEU Consortium, a free group open to companies interested in this richer fuel. Joining does not give a company any fuel.
verified 2026-09-30: Skeptic pass 2026-09-30: re-read the page (dateModified 2025-12-30T13:48; datePublished 2023-02-13); 'Valar Atomics' is in the member list; quote exact. The page does not say when Valar joined, so the date is the page's last modification. gov-008's allocation rounds were not re-read. Renumbered from a duplicate 'dir-025'.
newanalysisconfirmed An investor's profile in Nov. 2025 said Valar's 'LEU-TRISO' avoided the HALEU supply risk; DOE later cleared HALEU for Ward 250
2025-11-11 · dir-032 · Contrary Research, Valar Atomics

Contrary Research's profile of Valar (marked 'Updated November 11, 2025'; the page discloses that Contrary is an investor in Valar, orig-021) compares Valar with Oklo. It says that, like other companies using HALEU fuels, Oklo's largest risk is fuel availability, 'something Valar’s LEU-TRISO dodges'. That description matches the 4.95% LEU figure in Valar's safety agreement, dated October 2025 (dir-009). It does not match the NOVA release a week later ('HALEU TRISO', orig-040), LANL's account that NOVA used 19.9% CNPS fuel (dir-026, dir-027), or DOE's May 2026 shipping review (HALEU, up to 19.9 wt.%, safe-010). This is an investor's description, not a statement by Valar. (Updates disc-001.)

In plain termsLate in 2025 an investor's write-up described Valar's fuel as ordinary low-enriched uranium, which would sidestep the shortage of the richer HALEU fuel. That matched Valar's public safety paper, not the fuel DOE later cleared for the reactor.
verified 2026-09-30: Skeptic pass 2026-09-30: re-fetched the page (robots allows; about 9,500 words), re-read the 'Updated November 11, 2025' line, the Oklo paragraph (quote exact) and the investor disclosure. Fixed 'posted about a month earlier' to 'dated October 2025', since the NSDA's first public posting date is not established. Renumbered from a duplicate 'dir-024'.
newcompany claimconfirmed QA plan covers a 'Valarin' TRISO fuel fabrication facility at the Utah lab, based on German HOBEG methods
2025-10 · orig-038 · Valar Atomics, Valarin Fuel Fabrication Facility, HOBEG

Valar's QA Program Description (October 2025; status 'Approved', and Valar's post says DOE approved it) covers not just the Ward 250 reactor but a 'Valarin Fuel Fabrication Facility' at the Utah San Rafael Energy Research Center; together they are called the Valar Atomics San Rafael (VASR) Facility. It says the fuel lab will make TRISO particles in graphite compacts using German HOBEG technology with modern improvements. This matches Valar's stated aim to make its own fuel beside its reactors (orig-014) and its fuel-line pilot selection (orig-032). Whether the fuel lab has been built or authorized is not stated in the sources read; see plans_ops.json.

In plain termsValar's quality plan covers not only the reactor but a small plant at the same lab to make its own coated-bead fuel, using methods first developed in Germany. No DOE approval to run that fuel line has been made public (safe-031).
verified 2026-09-29: Verify pass 2 (2026-09-29): QA PDF re-read: Valarin Fuel Fabrication Facility, VASR, HOBEG with modern improvements. Match. 'DOE-approved' now attributed to Valar.
newrecordconfirmed Valarin fuel plant: approved papers call it part of a 12-month demo; Valar calls it the future largest US maker
2025-10 · plan-015 · Valar Atomics, U.S. Department of Energy, Orangeville City Council

Valar's Quality Assurance Program Description (October 2025, status 'Approved'; the only published Valar document read that covers the fuel plant) treats the Ward250 reactor and the 'Valarin Fuel Fabrication Facility' as one 'VASR Facility' and scales its quality rules to the facility's 'limited operational duration of approximately 12 months' and 'low hazard category', with full implementation required before fuel receipt. It says the fuel lab will make TRISO particles in graphite compacts using German HOBEG methods and is designed to stay below DOE Hazard Category 3 (orig-038, safe-031). Set beside this: on 11 June 2026 Valar's representative told Orangeville the second building will make Valar 'the largest manufacturer of this fuel in the United States' once completed; July 2026 job posts describe 'pilot scale uranium processing equipment' and a process that 'transitions into production' (loc-019); DOE's program page still lists Valar's fuel-line selection (30 September 2025) as conditional, with no later status; POWER (25 August 2026), listing Valar among 13 projects added to DOE's Nuclear Energy Launch Pad, says Valar is developing a 'co-located Valarin facility' for TRISO particles and compacts, and notes that project scopes were not disclosed. No NSDA, safety analysis, DOE authorization or state license for the fuel plant has been published (safe-031), and no public document says how much uranium it may hold or produce. A quality program sized for a 12-month demonstration is a different thing from a production plant; the record does not show which rules would apply to production. The quality program gives no uranium inventory, enrichment or threshold for its <HC3 claim, and the safety agreement never mentions the fuel facility (it categorizes only the reactor, as Hazard Category 2), so the claim cannot be checked from Valar's public papers.

In plain termsNext to the reactor, Valar is setting up a small factory to make its own uranium fuel pellets. The only approved paperwork anyone can read describes the whole site, fuel plant included, as a one-year demonstration with light rules to match. But Valar tells local councils this plant will become the biggest maker of this fuel in the country. Those are two very different things, and no public document yet explains what safety rules apply if it becomes a real production plant.
verified 2026-09-29: Verify pass 2026-09-29: QAPD re-read (Approved; Ward250 and Valarin as one VASR Facility; ~12 months; <HC3; full implementation before fuel receipt; HOBEG). Orangeville quote exact. 'Transitions into production' is in the CVD engineer post (feed source added), not the process engineer post. POWER wording corrected: it does not place the Valarin facility 'under' Launch Pad, and says scopes were not disclosed. Correction 2026-09-29 (calculation audit): added that the <HC3 claim gives no inventory or threshold and cannot be checked.
newanalysisreported Valar's own milestone table vs what happened: safety papers about 2 months late; criticality at least 12 days early
2025-10 · plan-004 · Valar Atomics, U.S. Department of Energy

Table 7 of Valar's Nuclear Safety Design Agreement (October 2025, page 53) set these targets: NSDA submittal 22 Sept 2025 (status 'In Review'), preliminary safety analysis (PDSA) 1 Nov 2025, final safety analysis (DSA) 6 Jan 2026, each with a 45-day DOE review; construction complete 13 April 2026; phased readiness review; initial criticality 30 June 2026. The record: DOE's PDSA approval is known only from POWER's report linking to Valar's own posts, as February 2026, and final DSA approval as 23 April 2026 (safe-006); set against the table's submittal dates plus the 45-day reviews (about mid-December 2025 and about 20 February 2026), each came roughly two months later; the reactor was flown in unfueled on 15 February 2026 (orig-030); DOE's environmental determination was signed 22 April 2026 and speaks of construction in the past tense; DOE approved the fuel-shipping package on 20 May 2026 (safe-010); Valar told the state lab board in May that DOE's readiness team had reviewed it (gov-037); DOE announced criticality on 18 June 2026 (orig-010), 12 days before the table's 30 June target (plan-005 on the exact date). The promise that mattered most publicly, criticality before 4 July 2026, holds (fund-020). None of the DOE approvals themselves (PDSA, DSA, safety requirements, readiness report, startup approval) has been published (safe-007).

In plain termsIn October 2025 Valar published its own schedule. The paperwork steps took about two months longer than planned, but the reactor still reached its first chain reaction on time, even a little early. That part of the promise was kept. What cannot be checked is the paperwork itself: DOE has not released the approvals, so the public knows them mostly from Valar's own posts.
verified 2026-09-29: Verify pass 2026-09-29: Table 7 re-read (dates are SUBMITTAL targets with 45-day reviews). 'About three months late' overstated the gap: measured against submittal plus review it is about two months. Downgraded to 'reported' because the approval dates rest on one report (POWER, citing Valar's LinkedIn posts).
newrecordconfirmed 2025: the local paper printed Valar's 'gigasites' aim and a plan for a Carbon County factory hub; no site named
2025-10-10 · loc-034 · Valar Atomics, ETV News, Utah San Rafael Energy Lab, Utah Office of Energy Development, Jaron Wallace

Two ETV News items from 2025, eleven months or more before the Wellington lease vote, show that a Valar project in Carbon County was in the local paper in general terms. On 17 September 2025 ETV printed the state Office of Energy Development's groundbreaking release (orig-067); its 'About Valar Atomics' paragraph says Valar 'is building America’s first nuclear gigasites', which it defines as clusters of thousands of high-temperature reactors. On 10 October 2025 an ETV article on the San Rafael lab, quoting lab director Jaron Wallace, reported that after about three years, once Valar completes its reactor and proves it can be run safely, 'their current plan is to build a manufacturing hub in Carbon County', which could bring hundreds of jobs to Carbon and Emery; it also said Valar was looking at powering data centers. The article does not say who told ETV about the Carbon plan, names no site, and says nothing about trust land or reactors in Carbon County. In sum, a Carbon County project by Valar was public in general terms from October 2025; the Wellington location, the trust-land lease and the plan for a reactor, fuel and industrial campus there were not found in any local record before the state vote (loc-011, loc-012, loc-032). The lease was approved about eleven months after the article, sooner than the 'after three years' it described.

In plain termsIn the fall of 2025 the local paper printed that Valar aimed to build clusters of thousands of reactors, and that its plan was a manufacturing hub in Carbon County in about three years. What the paper never said, until the day after the state approved it, was where: the square mile of state land north of Wellington. So the general idea was public early; the specific place, and how soon it would come, were not.
verified 2026-09-29: New in the verify pass: both ETV pages read in full on 29 Sept 2026. Tests the 'nobody knew' view: the general Carbon plan was public in 2025; the site was not. Correction 2026-09-30 (source objectivity review): reworded the detail; reworded the plain-language text; corrected the description of ETV News (source_type, title).
newrecordconfirmed Sept 2025: DOE's 'conditional' fuel-line pick of Valar, at its own cost; Ward 250's fuel came from a federal lab site
2025-09-30 · orig-032 · Valar Atomics, U.S. Department of Energy, Terrestrial Energy, TRISO-X, Oklo, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Standard Nuclear

DOE's September 30, 2025 release is the primary record. In the second round of conditional selections for its Fuel Line Pilot Program, DOE selected Oklo, Terrestrial Energy, TRISO-X and Valar Atomics Inc (Hawthorne, CA), Valar's project being to support TRISO fuel fabrication for the Ward 250 deployment and possibly other high-temperature gas reactors. Each company pays all costs of building, running and decommissioning its fuel facility and must arrange its own nuclear feedstock; companies may apply for HALEU through DOE's HALEU Availability Program. DOE had earlier selected Standard Nuclear to build TRISO fuel facilities. World Nuclear News and Mother Jones ('one of four companies', 'last September') report the same selection, and Valar's NOVA release and Series B post list it. Set beside the record: DOE's May 2026 shipping review authorized HALEU TRISO fuel compacts to be shipped to Ward 250 from Los Alamos's criticality center in Nevada, where the NOVA test ran (safe-010); the NOVA release says Valar 'provided' the TRISO fuel, but no record read says who manufactured it; Valar's QA plan describes a 'Valarin' fuel lab at the Utah site (orig-038), for which no DOE authorization is public (safe-031); and the Series B post says Valar will make its own fuel beside its reactors (orig-070).

In plain termsDOE gave Valar conditional permission to set up its own fuel-making line, at its own cost. So far, though, the fuel for Ward 250 was shipped from a federal laboratory site in Nevada, and who made it is not on the public record. Making nuclear fuel is a separate operation with its own hazards, and its approval papers are not public.
verified 2026-09-29: Verify pass 2 (2026-09-29): merged with orig-068 (the same DOE selection; orig-068 held the primary record). DOE release, WNN, Mother Jones and NOVA release re-read; DOE's shipping review added for the fuel's origin. 'Where the NOVA test had used it' softened to 'where the NOVA test ran': the review does not say it is the NOVA fuel. Correction 2026-09-29 (wording review): Mother Jones cited as 'Mother Jones (Kiera Butler), 26 Feb 2026' (narrow quote; headline not repeated).
newcompany claimconfirmed July 2025 Emery County town hall: Valar pitched a 12-month test, ~40 jobs, 'commercial development by 2028'
2025-07-08 · orig-045 · Valar Atomics, Emery County Commission, Utah San Rafael Energy Lab, Jaron Wallace, Jeremy Pearson

ETV News (Julie Johansen, July 9, 2025) reported the Emery County Commission's July 8, 2025 town hall in Castle Dale, requested by Valar after an MOU was signed and before its contract with the state lab was final. As reported, Valar said the company was about two years old, had a non-fueled test reactor near Los Angeles, aimed for July 4, 2026 (the nation's 250th birthday, hence 'Ward 250') with commercial development by 2028, expected about 40 employees for roughly 12 months of testing with local contractors for construction, and chose Utah because Carbon and Emery counties are the state's energy hub. A Valar slide deck posted on the state-run Utah Public Notice Website (file created July 8, 2025, server date 9 July 2025; 11 of its 12 pages are marked 'CONFIDENTIAL. DO NOT DISTRIBUTE.', yet the file is publicly posted; the public body and notice it is attached to were not identified) says the same: under 250 kW, 30 effective full-power days over 12 months in a temporary facility, commercial deployment by 2028.

In plain termsAt a July 2025 town hall Valar told Emery County residents about a small 12-month test with about 40 jobs, and a goal of commercial reactors by 2028. By 2026 the company was planning far larger sites (mine-019).
verified 2026-09-29: Verify pass 2 (2026-09-29): ETV report and the slide PDF (created Jul 8, 2025; 'CONFIDENTIAL'; <250 kW, 30 EFPD, 12 months, temporary facility; commercial deployment by 2028) re-read. Match. A nuclear engineer who spoke at the town hall is not named. Correction 2026-10-01 (precision review): wording made more exact against the cited records.
newrecordconfirmed DOE's terms for the pilot: research, 'not' commercial suitability; companies pay all costs; picked on readiness
2025-06-18 · gov-007 · U.S. Department of Energy, Valar Atomics, Chris Wright

DOE's 18 June 2025 release opening the Reactor Pilot Program (Request for Application issued that day; first applications due 21 July 2025, then rolling) says the program 'is specifically designed to foster research and development of nuclear reactors and not demonstrate reactors for commercial suitability', while also calling DOE authorization 'a fast-tracked approach to enable future commercial licensing activities' (DOE's program page says the program aims 'to fast-track commercial licensing'), that applicants bear all costs of designing, building, operating and decommissioning each test reactor, and that selection would weigh technological readiness, site evaluations, financial viability and a detailed plan to reach criticality. DOE's 16 July 2025 Fuel Line Pilot release likewise says fuel lines 'will serve for research, development, and demonstration purposes', with each company paying for its facility and 'the procurement of all nuclear material feedstock'. Set beside Valar's statements to Utah bodies: at the July 2025 town hall it spoke of commercial development by 2028 (orig-045); before the state's economic board in July 2026 its representatives spoke of plans 'to install additional commercial units in the area' (csite-024); and the Carbon County lease is for a nuclear 'campus' with fuel manufacturing (csite-007). Commercial units would fall outside the DOE pilot pathway and need NRC licensing (safe-030, csite-010); Hogan Lovells' summary of the application rules says the administration intends DOE-authorized reactors to be fast-tracked for future NRC licensing (gov-032). The Request for Application itself (FedConnect) was not read.

In plain termsDOE was explicit that its fast-track program is for research reactors, not for proving that a reactor is ready to sell power. Valar's test reactor fits that. DOE also sells the program as a fast track toward later commercial licensing, but that later licensing is the NRC's. But Valar has told Utah officials about commercial reactors and a bigger campus in Carbon County, and those would not qualify for the same shortcut: they would need a license from the independent Nuclear Regulatory Commission, with its public process. Residents should not assume the quick, hearing-free path used in Emery County carries over to Carbon County.
verified 2026-09-29: Re-read both DOE releases 2026-09-29; quotes exact. Fixed: added DOE's own 'fast-track commercial licensing' framing, which the earlier text omitted and which the state lab's marketing echoes; the conclusion (commercial units need the NRC) still holds.
newcompany claimreported In April 2025 Valar said it would build and test Ward One in the Philippines because of NRC rules
2025-04-07 · orig-018 · Valar Atomics, Philippine Nuclear Research Institute

The same April 2025 post says Utah, Texas and other states had expressed interest in hosting the test reactor, but that because the NRC had not exempted small test reactors, Valar was building and testing it in the Philippines instead. Four months later (August 2025) DOE's pilot selection gave Valar a U.S. path, and its first reactor to be built, Ward 250, went to Utah instead (orig-006); Ward One stayed a Philippine plan. The November 2025 NOVA release still lists the Philippine partnership, and ANS reported that month that Ward One was slated to be built there by a Philippine-incorporated Valar subsidiary. Set beside the record: as of April 2026, Philippine reporting says the reactor had not been built and the project was still seeking approval to use a site on University of the Philippines land (orig-064).

In plain termsIn April 2025 Valar said U.S. rules pushed it to test its first reactor abroad, in the Philippines. Four months later the U.S. government opened a faster DOE path and the first reactor went to Utah instead. The Philippine project was still waiting on a site approval in April 2026 (orig-064).
verified 2026-09-29: Verify pass 2 (2026-09-29): post and NOVA release re-read; ANS's November 2025 report, cited in the detail but missing from sources, added. Wording fixed: Ward One did not move to Utah; a different reactor (Ward 250) was built there.
newrecordreported Ward One in the Philippines: announced March 2025, not built by April 2026, still seeking a site on university land
2025-03 · orig-064 · Valar Atomics, Valar Atomics Research Institute, Philippine Nuclear Research Institute, Greenpeace Philippines

March 2025 (GMA News and Daily Tribune, March 24; Power Philippines): speaking as president of Valar Atomics Research Institute, Kip Mock said Valar would build a 100 kW micro high-temperature gas reactor with the Philippine Nuclear Research Institute (PNRI) as a proof of concept, not connected to the grid and not generating electricity, at a cost in the 'tens of millions' of dollars; licensing with PNRI's regulatory arm had begun; he would not give a timeline or location. A US firm, EoS Organization, gave a 192-million-peso grant to the Philippine Nuclear Science Foundation in support of the reactor, and Mindanao State University-Iligan Institute of Technology joined as a partner. TechCrunch (February 2025) reported the PNRI contract covered a test-scale reactor and two full-scale reactors. Greenpeace Philippines condemned the deal (March 27, 2025). ANS (November 2025) described Valar Atomics Research Institute as a Philippine-incorporated subsidiary. The Philippine Collegian, the University of the Philippines student paper (April 2026), reports PNRI Director Carlo Arcilla said the project had Department of Science and Technology approval, aimed to finish within two to three years, and was seeking approval from the University of the Philippines to build within PNRI, which sits on UP Diliman land, and that the scientists' group AGHAM opposed it. Set beside Valar's April 2025 statement that it was building and testing this reactor in the Philippines (orig-018): a year later no reactor had been built there. Valar's claim of the world's first binding Coordinated Research Project with PNRI (orig-066) could not be checked: PNRI's website refuses our reader.

In plain termsBefore Utah, Valar planned its first uranium reactor, Ward One, for the Philippines, saying U.S. rules were too slow. It announced the project in March 2025. A year later the reactor still had not been built; the Philippine nuclear institute's director said the aim was to finish in two to three years, on University of the Philippines land, and local scientists and students objected to a test reactor in an urban area.
verified 2026-09-29: Verify pass 2 (2026-09-29): GMA, Daily Tribune, Power Philippines (dated March 24, 2025), Greenpeace, ANS, Philippine Collegian, TechCrunch and the Valar post re-read: 100 kW, proof of concept, no grid, 'tens of millions', licensing begun, P192M EoS grant, MSU-IIT, DOST approval, 2-3 years, seeking UP site approval. Match. The student quoted by the Collegian is not named.
newcompany claimconfirmed Max Ukropina, Head of Projects: scouted Utah in 2024; says the 'test' site is now Valar's whole Utah operation
2024 · ppl-006 · Max Ukropina, Valar Atomics, Utah Office of Energy Development, Governor's Office of Economic Opportunity, Southeastern Regional Development Agency, Carbon County, Emery County

Valar's mission page lists Max Ukropina as Head of Projects. In the NOVA release (Nov 2025) he said President Trump asked industry and the labs 'to make nuclear great again'. At the Trust Lands board on 20 August 2026 (auto-transcript and approved minutes) he said Valar talked to more than 20 states; that in 2024 he came to Utah and met the Office of Energy Development, the Governor's economic office, SERDA and Carbon County (the auto-transcript renders these as 'Office of Development, the Goyo, Serta, and Carbon County'), when the plan was to make fuels from coal-plant flue gas; that the Emery lab is 'no longer just a test facility' but Valar's whole Utah operation including a fuel facility; that Valar is buying 110 acres from Emery County (mine-018); and that Valar had been careful to avoid 'overpromising' to rural communities. Set beside the record: in July 2025 Valar told Emery County about a 12-month test in a temporary facility (orig-045, mine-019), and the first public record naming Valar for the Carbon site is from August 2026 (csite-018), although by his account the company had been talking with Carbon County since 2024 (csite-028). His earlier career was not established from any readable source (his profile pages need a login).

In plain termsUkropina, Valar's Head of Projects, scouted its Utah sites. His own words at a public board meeting show that Valar was talking with Carbon County officials in 2024, well before the first public record we found naming Valar for the Carbon site (August 2026). In 2025 Valar presented a 12-month test in a temporary facility; in 2026 he described the lab site as its whole Utah operation, including a fuel facility, alongside a land purchase.
verified 2026-09-29: Re-read the 20 Aug 2026 auto-transcript (Ukropina at 1:07:57), the approved minutes, the NOVA release and the mission page. Holds. Fixed: quote now exact ('no longer just a test facility'); garbled agency names flagged as auto-transcript; plain no longer says the test was 'sold' or that the public 'was not told', and states the gap with dates. Cross-refs orig-045, mine-018, mine-019, csite-018, csite-028 checked. Quote corrected to the transcript's word, 'overpromising'. Correction 2026-09-29 (wording review): plain states the 2025 and 2026 descriptions with dates.
newanalysisconfirmed What local audiences heard about scale: 'just testing' (July 2025) to 'hundreds of reactors' (Sept 2026)
undated · loc-003 · Valar Atomics, Emery County, Carbon County

In the order Carbon and Emery audiences heard it, from local reports and releases: 8 July 2025, Valar's Castle Dale town hall, reported by ETV the next day under the headline 'Not A Nuclear Plant Just Testing a Small Nuclear Reactor': a test of about 12 months with about 40 staff (orig-045). 17 September 2025, the state's groundbreaking release printed in ETV ends with Valar's own description: it 'is building America’s first nuclear gigasites', clusters of thousands of reactors (orig-067, loc-034). 10 October 2025, ETV reported that after about three years Valar's 'current plan' was a manufacturing hub in Carbon County, no site named (loc-034). 23 January 2026, a lab release printed in ETV: the site will house Valar's fuel fabrication facility as well as Ward 250. 24 February 2026, Valar's open-house release: Ward 250 is a research reactor for engineering validation and 'it is not a commercial power plant'. 7 April 2026, Emery hearing on the land sale: plans for the extra land 'not firm yet', maybe housing (ETV); fuel fabrication and manufacturing (minutes, gov-022). 9 July 2026, to the state incentive board in Salt Lake City: 'additional commercial units in the area' (gov-033); 9 and 21 July, up to 1,000 water shares for future development (mine-042). 12 August 2026: plans to eventually manufacture reactors and fuel, with mass production as the long-term goal (ETV). 19 August: 'potential plans' to produce reactors for industrial users so they can move off the grid (ETV, loc-006). 10 September: hopes to build hundreds of reactors in Carbon and Emery (loc-001). 17 September: state lease for a Carbon reactor, fuel and industrial campus approved (mine-011). None of these statements contradicts the company's published 'gigasite' aim (orig-001), and that aim was printed in the local paper in September 2025; the 2025 'just testing' framing described the first reactor only. The gap is in timing and specifics: the size of the plan reached local audiences in pieces, a Carbon County plan was reported in general terms in October 2025, and no local statement read named the Wellington site before the vote (loc-012).

In plain termsIn 2025 Emery County was told this was a small, one-year test, not a power plant. But that same year the local paper printed Valar's description of itself as building clusters of thousands of reactors, and reported a plan for a factory hub in Carbon County in about three years. Through 2026 the details grew: a fuel factory, more land, water for future growth, and by September 'hundreds of reactors' across both counties. Each piece was said somewhere in public, but in small pieces, and the one concrete new site, north of Wellington, was not among the things said locally before the state approved it.
verified 2026-09-29: Re-read all cited pages. Fixed the town hall date (8 July 2025; ETV reported it 9 July) and '19 Aug plans' to ETV's 'potential plans'. Found two 2025 ETV items the pass had not used: the Sept 2025 release with Valar's 'gigasites' description and an Oct 2025 report of a Carbon County manufacturing hub plan; the conclusion now reflects them.
newanalysisconfirmed Jobs, as told locally: '20-40' local hires and a 12-month test (2025), 275 jobs to the state (2026), 'dozens' hired
undated · loc-004 · Valar Atomics, Dennis Worwood, Jordan Leonard, Harry Hansen, Max Ukropina, Governor's Office of Economic Opportunity · average wage of the 275 projected jobs (state incentive file): $137,567

Job figures on the record, in order: at the 8 July 2025 town hall, about 40 employees for roughly 12 months of testing, with local contractors for construction (ETV, 9 July 2025; orig-045); at the Carbon/Emery economic development group's September 2025 meeting, Emery Commissioner Dennis Worwood said Valar planned to hire 20-40 more local employees (ETV, 6 Oct 2025); on 10 October 2025 ETV reported the research at the lab had 'only brought in a few dozen jobs', mostly engineers from outside the area, and that a later Carbon County manufacturing hub could bring hundreds (loc-034); on 11 December 2025 Valar's Jess Housekeeper told Orangeville's council Valar was looking for 30-40 workers over the next six months (minutes); in February 2026 a USU Eastern housing study presented to a local housing committee counted Valar as planning to employ about 40 technicians and contractors (ETV, 24 Feb 2026); on 15 April 2026 Housekeeper told Ferron's council that Valar employed 120 people in Emery County, 'a lot' of them not living in Utah, with 15-20 full-time employees at the site plus construction workers and electricians (minutes); on 9 July 2026 the state's economic development board approved a tax credit on Valar's projection of 275 jobs at an average wage of $137,567 in Emery County with $1.3 billion of investment (csite-024); on 13 August 2026 Valar's Harry Hansen told the Orangeville council Valar had recently hired 40 new employees from the Castle Country area (ETV, 20 Aug); on 19 August Valar told the Carbon County Commission it had hired local residents from closed coal operations (minutes); on 10 September Max Ukropina said Valar has hired dozens of community members (ETV, 14 Sept). Emery Commissioner Jordan Leonard said in August that local hiring by Valar had drawn workers from other local jobs, opening places for returning families (ETV, 14 Aug). No figure for jobs at the Carbon County campus appears in the Trust Lands records summarized in carbon_site.json. The figures are not in conflict on their face: they count different things (site staff, contractors, everyone working for Valar in Emery) at different stages, and the April figure shows that many of the people then working for Valar in Emery did not live in Utah. The 275-job figure is a projection tied to a state tax credit that is paid only after the new tax revenue comes in (csite-024); no public count of Valar's Utah payroll exists to check the local figures against.

In plain termsThe job numbers people heard grew with the plan: about 40 for a one-year test in 2025, 275 promised to the state in 2026 to qualify for a tax break, and 'dozens' or '40' local hires reported since. In April 2026 Valar itself said 120 people were working for it in Emery County, many of whom did not live in Utah, with 15-20 full-time staff at the site. None of these numbers is false on its face; they count different things. The 275 is a promise the state pays for only after the jobs and taxes show up, and the local hiring counts are the company's own, with no public payroll to check them against.
verified 2026-09-29: Corrected Worwood's remark to the group's September 2025 meeting (ETV reported it 6 Oct). Replaced a quote that did not bear on jobs. Added three primary figures the pass missed: 30-40 workers (Orangeville, Dec 2025), 120 employed in Emery with many living out of state and 15-20 full-time at the site (Ferron, Apr 2026), local coal-worker hiring (Carbon, Aug 2026).
newanalysisconfirmed From fuel synthesis to AI power: how Valar's stated purpose shifted between 2024 and 2026
undated · orig-063 · Valar Atomics, NVIDIA

2024-2025: the California filing gives the business as nuclear heat for fuel synthesis (orig-052); the December 2024 homepage leads with hydrogen and synthetic fuel from captured CO2 (orig-062); TechCrunch (February 2025) reported the aim of cheap hydrogen and synthetic fuels at up to 900 C; Valar's head of projects told the Trust Lands board that its 2024 Utah plan was to make fuels from coal-plant flue gas (mine-018, ppl-006); its December 2025 lobbying registration still describes 'clean hydrocarbon fuel production'. 2026: the July 1 event powered one NVIDIA chip and announced a 30 MW data-center study (orig-042); its BLM applications are titled 'Small Modular Reactor/Data Center' (mine-006); the Series B post leads with AI infrastructure; the Carbon County plan lists reactors, fuel manufacturing, hydrogen and synthetic fuels, data centers and steel (csite-001, csite-007). No record read shows Valar producing any hydrogen or synthetic fuel, and its homepage still offers hydrogen through a sulfur-iodine cycle, a process that an investor-published profile says has never been deployed commercially (orig-024). Plans can change honestly; the record shows the headline product moving from fuels toward AI power while the fuel claims stay on the site.

In plain termsValar started out saying it would use reactor heat to make hydrogen and gasoline-like fuels. In 2026 its headlines are about powering AI data centers. The fuel and hydrogen promises are still on its website, but no record shows it has made either. That does not make the plan false, but it is still only a plan.
verified 2026-09-29: Verify pass 2 (2026-09-29): bizprofile, homepage, LDA registration and Series B post re-read; quotes exact. The TechCrunch report the detail relied on was missing from sources: added.