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analysisreported 'CAT scan' spent-fuel claim still on Valar's site; no supporting calculation or correction found there
2026-09 · safe-026 · Valar Atomics, Isaiah Taylor

Valar's April 2025 lawsuit post, still online in late September 2026, says its analysis indicates that holding spent fuel from its 100 kWt 'Ward One' test reactor (planned life under a month) for five minutes gives radiation exposure equal to a CAT scan. Valar's Ward 250 safety paper, the NSDA, credits reactor shielding that 'cannot be inadvertently defeated', analyzes fuel-handling accidents, and plans defueling into storage; DOE's categorical exclusion has the spent core leave in dry storage casks. No Valar correction or published calculation was found on Valar's website as of late September 2026. For scale: a CT scan is about 1 to 10 millisieverts (FDA), so five minutes would need 12 to 120 millisieverts an hour; the post gives no amount of fuel, cooling time, distance or shielding.

In plain termsUsed reactor fuel is radioactive; how much depends on the reactor's power, how long it ran and how long the fuel has cooled. Valar said holding used fuel from its planned Ward One test reactor for five minutes would be like one hospital CT scan. No calculation supporting it was found on its website, where the claim remains. For Ward 250, its own safety paper treats radiation shielding as a safety function, and DOE's review has the used fuel leave in dry storage casks.
verified 2026-10-02: Re-read Valar's 7 April 2025 post in late September 2026: the five-minute CAT-scan sentence is still on the page, with no correction or supporting calculation. Corrected in late September 2026: added the CT-scan dose-rate scale; removed a quoted phrase that was not Valar's wording. Corrected 30 Sept 2026: reworded the headline, detail and plain-language text to rest on government and company documents; a news citation was removed; now also cites the U.S. Energy Information Administration and the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Nuclear Energy.
official statementconfirmed Carbon commissioners: with Valar 'since the beginning'; county agendas read did not name the site
2026-09-17 · ppl-020 · Larry Jensen, Jared Haddock, Tony Martines, Carbon County Commission, Valar Atomics

The three Carbon County commissioners (Larry Jensen, Jared Haddock, Tony Martines) signed the 29 June 2026 support letter (mine-013) and spoke for the lease at both Trust Lands hearings. On 20 August Haddock said the county had worked with Valar 'since the beginning, when they were looking at other states', and praised its public education, 'not hiding anything'; Jensen stressed the lost coal tax base (no county coal for over four years, which holds, mine-039); Martines spoke of the county's energy history, infrastructure and workforce. On 17 September Jensen said the commission is 'committed to allowing these things to move forward' despite 'a few in our community who will push back', and that the 'silent majority' will support it 'as they're educated and learn how safe this process is'. Set beside the record: the commission's agendas from December 2023 to September 2026 name Valar once (a 19 Aug 2026 presentation), its minutes mention Valar only in that presentation and in remarks on 1 July and 2 September 2026, and none read names the Wellington site or the letter (csite-026); no safety document of any kind for a Carbon reactor or fuel plant was found in the public record as of late September 2026; and for the county conditional use permit Valar would need, state law requires approval if harms can be reasonably mitigated and does not itself require a hearing, the Trust Lands memo says Carbon's process includes one, and the conditional-use chapter of the county's 2023 Development Code does not require one (csite-015). The commissioners' long engagement with Valar is stated in their own remarks, in their 29 June 2026 letter ('working with Valor Atomics for over one year', mine-013) and by Valar; no county agenda or minutes recording it before the 19 Aug 2026 presentation were found (csite-026).

In plain termsCarbon County's commissioners say they worked with Valar from the start and praised it for 'not hiding anything'. In the county agendas and minutes we read, from December 2023 to September 2026, the Wellington site was never named, and no public safety study for a reactor there has been found. No public safety document for a Carbon reactor or fuel plant was found as of late September 2026.
verified 2026-10-02: Re-read both Trust Lands transcripts (Haddock 09:12 on 20 Aug; Martines 38:08 and Jensen 24:57 on 17 Sep) and the minutes. Quotes exact. Fixed: 'no safety document exists' restated as 'none found as of late September 2026'; the permit/hearing point restated to match csite-015 (state law does not require a hearing; the memo says Carbon's process includes one). Cross-refs mine-013, mine-039, csite-026 checked. Revised before publication (late September 2026): plain and detail restated as what the records show; absence stated as not found. Revised before publication (2026-09-30): on 20 Aug Jensen spoke on the tax base; Martines on energy history, infrastructure and workforce
official statementreported Aug 12, 2026: a Carbon commissioner said project nondisclosure agreements are usually the companies' demand
2026-08-12 · loc-002 · Jared Haddock, Carbon County Commission, Valar Atomics, Southeastern Regional Development Agency · Carbon County taxable value lost over a decade, per Commissioner Haddock: $1,000,000,000

ETV News (14 Aug 2026) reported the Carbon & Emery Energy Collaborative held on 12 August 2026 at the Southeastern Regional Development Agency's offices in Price. Carbon County Commissioner Jared Haddock said the county had lost roughly $1 billion in taxable value over the past decade and that one large data center could provide a tax base comparable to about 4,200 homes. He also addressed concerns about nondisclosure agreements connected to economic development projects, saying (as ETV paraphrased him) that such agreements are typically required by the private companies considering an area rather than by the county, and that another company was looking at bringing industry to Carbon County, with details limited. At the same event Valar's Jess Housekeeper spoke of plans to eventually manufacture reactors and fuel. The report names no Valar site. Eight days later Haddock told the Trust Lands board the county had worked with Valar 'since the beginning' (ppl-020). One week after the summit, the commission's own minutes (19 Aug 2026) record it lifting a 'long-standing' NDA on a separate $600 million factory prospect that had been canceled (loc-036). No nondisclosure agreement between Carbon County and Valar appears in any record read; neither the report nor the minutes say one exists.

In plain termsA nondisclosure agreement (NDA) is a contract to keep talks confidential. A Carbon County commissioner said in public that such agreements come up in economic-development talks and are usually the company's demand, not the county's, and a week later the county's own minutes recorded that a big factory prospect had been under a long-standing NDA, lifted and announced after the company canceled (loc-036). It does not show that the county signed one with Valar: a public-records (GRAMA) request to Carbon County for any NDA or confidentiality agreement with Valar would settle that.
verified 2026-10-02: Re-read ETV 14 Aug: holds as ETV's paraphrase of Haddock. Replaced a quote that was Housekeeper's, not Haddock's. Added the 19 Aug minutes recording a county NDA on another project (loc-036).
recordconfirmed Series B, Aug 2026: $1B led by Sequoia; Valar gave no valuation; Bloomberg's $6B is repeated by others
2026-08-03 · fund-007 · Valar Atomics, Sequoia Capital, Shaun Maguire, Liam Corrigan, Apandion, Atreides Management, Conviction, Dream Ventures · Series B equity (company-announced): $1,000,000,000; valuation (reported by Bloomberg; not disclosed by Valar): $6,000,000,000

Valar's post dated 4 Aug 2026 (TechCrunch reported it on Monday 3 Aug) announces 'the closing of a $1 billion Series B financing led by Sequoia Capital', with Apandion, Atreides Management, Conviction, Dream Ventures, HOF Capital, Point72, Riot Ventures, Snowpoint Ventures and Valor Equity Partners, plus unnamed investors, and says Sequoia partner Shaun Maguire joins the board. Valar's law firm, Goodwin Procter, published a matching deal announcement naming the same investors. Sequoia's own portfolio page lists Valar as 'Partnered 2026', names partners Shaun Maguire and Liam Corrigan, and says Valar 'sells power rather than reactors'. TechCrunch says the company did not disclose a valuation and that Bloomberg reported $6 billion; The Next Web gives $6 billion and calls it three times the $2 billion of the spring (fund-006). Sacra's page quotes Bloomberg as saying the deal 'values Valar at $6 billion, including the money being invested', that is, a post-money figure. The Bloomberg and Axios reports behind the $6 billion were not reviewed. Before the close, TechCrunch (17 July) reported, from three sources, that part of the $1 billion had been raised earlier at a lower valuation; Valar's post does not break the round into tranches, but Sacra's share-class table does. The post says the money moves Valar from one demonstrated reactor to 'producing fleets of them en masse', with its own fuel production.

In plain termsIn August 2026 Valar announced $1 billion from investors led by Sequoia, one of Silicon Valley's best-known venture firms, plus a $200 million loan facility. The company did not say what the deal valued it at; the widely repeated $6 billion figure comes from a Bloomberg report, and counts the new money in. Reporters were told that some of the '$1 billion' had actually been collected months earlier at a lower price, so the headline number may overlap with the spring raise.
verified 2026-10-02: Re-verified in late September 2026: Valar post, Goodwin, Sequoia, both TechCrunch items and TNW re-read; quotes exact. Removed 'Growth stage' (no stage label on Sequoia's page as read); added Sacra's relay of Bloomberg's post-money wording.
official statementreported As reported, Carbon commissioners called Ward 250 a 'commercial reactor' and the planned data center waterless; Valar calls Ward 250 a research reactor and has called the data center both waterless and low-water
2026-07-01 · loc-005 · Jared Haddock, Tony Martines, Carbon County Commission, Valar Atomics, NVIDIA

ETV News (3 July 2026) reported the Carbon County Commission meeting of Wednesday 1 July 2026 (ETV's text gives 'June 2' and 'June 1', but its publication date, the fire restrictions ahead of the Fourth of July and the NVIDIA announcement place it on 1 July; the commission's 1 July minutes record the same celebration (csite-026) and record Commissioner Haddock saying Valar had announced a data center partnership, one 'that will run without any water'). As ETV reported it, Commissioner Jared Haddock described Ward 250 as having recently become 'the first government-approved commercial reactor' to achieve a self-sustaining reaction outside a federal lab, and Commissioner Tony Martines said that because Valar's reactor is gas-cooled and NVIDIA's chips are air-cooled, the planned data center won't need water. Set beside the record: Valar's own February 2026 release says Ward 250 is a research reactor and 'not a commercial power plant'; DOE's pilot is for research and 'not' to demonstrate commercial suitability; DOE's 'first DOE authorized reactor built outside of a national laboratory' holds (orig-010). On water, Valar's account as ETV reported it was that the data center would use a closed-loop cooling system 'designed for low water consumption' and that it already had the water it needs, while seeking up to 1,000 more shares for other projects (ETV, 28 July). The part about being first outside a federal lab holds; 'commercial' goes beyond what Valar and DOE say. The commissioners' no-water description matches Valar's own 4 August 2026 release, which calls the planned data center 'a waterless 30 MW AI factory'.

In plain termsTwo Carbon County commissioners, speaking at a public meeting as the local paper reported it, described Valar's test reactor as a 'commercial' reactor and its planned data center as needing no water. The officials' description, as reported, differs from Valar's own on the reactor: Valar calls Ward 250 a research reactor that is not a commercial power plant. On water, Valar has described the data center both as waterless (in its own August 2026 announcement) and as designed for low water use (as the local paper reported in late July).
verified 2026-10-02: Re-read ETV 3 July, the Feb 2026 Valar release and ETV 28 July: holds as ETV's paraphrase. Plain field now says 'as reported'. Revised before publication (late September 2026): the comparison is restated as a plain difference.
recordconfirmed Series A, Nov 2025: $130M co-led by Snowpoint, Day One and Dream; total raised then 'more than $150 million'
2025-11-10 · fund-004 · Valar Atomics, Snowpoint Ventures, Day One Ventures, Dream Ventures, Doug Philippone, Palmer Luckey, Shyam Sankar, John Donovan · Series A (reported): $130,000,000; total funding after the Series A ('more than', as reported): $150,000,000

ANS Nuclear Newswire (13 Nov 2025) reported a $130 million Series A 'led by venture capital groups Snowpoint, Day One, and Dream', with Snowpoint co-founder Doug Philippone joining the board and total funding above $150 million. Tech Startups (10 Nov 2025) gives the same three leads, names Palmer Luckey (Anduril's founder) and Palantir CTO Shyam Sankar as backers, says Lockheed Martin director and former AT&T executive John Donovan joined the round, and says the raise pushed Valar's total funding to more than $150 million. Contrary Research (an investor, 11 Nov 2025) credits the lead to Philippone at Snowpoint and lists Luckey, Sankar, Dream, Day One and Contrary itself, with a 'Total Funding' figure of $150M. The sum of the earlier rounds ($1.5M + about $19M + $130M) matches the $150 million total. No valuation for this round appears in any source read; The Next Web later said only that the Series A valued Valar at 'a fraction' of its March 2026 price. No Series A article by Valar itself was found in its online library (read in late September 2026); its Series A items link to a LinkedIn post by Taylor (a TBPN clip), a paywalled Bloomberg story, an Axios Pro Rata item and an LA Times B2B story, none of which was reviewed.

In plain termsIn November 2025 Valar raised $130 million from three venture firms and several well-known defense-technology figures, bringing its total to about $150 million. No valuation for this round was found in the news and investor reports read. Its backers include the founders or top executives of Anduril and Palantir, two major defense contractors, and a Lockheed Martin board member.
verified 2026-10-02: Re-verified in late September 2026: ANS, Tech Startups, Contrary and The Next Web re-read; quotes exact. Fixed a quote-style rendering of Contrary's total and added the Axios item the library also links.
analysisconfirmed Valar says it met Carbon County and state offices in 2024, initially about making fuels from coal-plant exhaust; a public agenda first named Valar for the Wellington site in Aug 2026
2024 · ppl-027 · Max Ukropina, Jared Haddock, Carbon County Commission, Utah Office of Energy Development, Governor's Office of Economic Opportunity, Southeastern Regional Development Agency, Utah Trust Lands Administration, Valar Atomics

Testing whether the public knew, against what the people involved have said on the record. Officials and Valar: Valar's Max Ukropina told the Trust Lands board that in 2024 he met the Office of Energy Development, the Governor's economic office, SERDA and Carbon County (mine-018); Commissioner Jared Haddock said the county worked with Valar 'since the beginning, when they were looking at other states' (ppl-020); the county's 29 June 2026 letter says the county had worked with Valar for over a year (mine-013); Carbon's October 2024 minutes note that Commissioner Martines phoned in while traveling home from a trip to Idaho National Laboratory connected with the San Rafael lab; no mention of Valar was found in those minutes (csite-026). The New Republic reports that before the May 2025 executive orders Valar staff were exploring land in southern Utah for a first 'gigasite', and the lab director says a contract followed about two weeks after Valar said it wanted to build at the lab; in July 2025 the state called its agreement a non-binding MOU. Public: the state's lease map is dated 9 April 2026 (mine-048); the 20 April 2026 state notice called it an unnamed industrial and power project (csite-032); the first public agenda naming Valar for the site is 10 August 2026 (csite-018); the first ETV News report of the lease that was found came on 18 September, the day after approval. Finding: by the officials' and Valar's own accounts, county, state-agency and regional officials were in contact with Valar about Carbon County from 2024, roughly two years before a public agenda named Valar for the site. The 2024 contacts, as Ukropina described them, concerned making fuels from coal-plant flue gas; when the Wellington parcel itself entered the talks is not settled by the records read (Ukropina's line in the auto-transcript, 'the first property I looked at was actually property', is garbled, mine-018; the state's lease map is dated 9 April 2026; the county's 29 June 2026 letter says it had worked with Valar for over a year). This is a gap in time before public notice, not proof of any intent, and the board's notices met the meeting law's timing (csite-016); no record of what was said in those 2024-2026 contacts was found in public records.

In plain termsBy Valar's account, Carbon County, two state offices and the regional development agency SERDA had been talking with Valar since 2024, at first about making fuels from coal-plant exhaust; a county commissioner said the county had worked with Valar 'since the beginning'. The Wellington parcel shows up in state records from April 2026 (a lease map), but the first public record found attaching Valar's name to it was an August 2026 meeting notice, about five weeks before the vote. The emails and meeting notes from those two years would show what was discussed, and they can be requested.
verified 2026-10-02: Re-read the 20 Aug auto-transcript (Ukropina; Haddock), TNR (delivered part) and UIJP; quotes exact. Fixed: the finding said officials 'knew of Valar's interest in Carbon County' for two years; the record shows contact from 2024, first about coal flue-gas fuels, while the Wellington parcel appears in public-agency records only from April 2026 (map) and by name in August 2026. Plain's 'The people in charge knew' removed. Cross-refs mine-013, mine-018, mine-048, csite-018, csite-026, csite-032 checked. Quote marks removed from wording taken from the county letter and minutes (mine-013, csite-026), which were not re-opened in this check; the substance rests on those facts. Corrected in late September 2026: the closing sentence on intent shortened to 'not proof of any intent'. Corrected 2026-09-30: the October 2024 county minutes record only that Commissioner Martines phoned in while traveling home from Idaho National Laboratory.
recordreported Deseret News: Taylor founded Valar on July 4, 2023; company is El Segundo-based with a Utah operations director
2023-07-04 · orig-029 · Valar Atomics, Isaiah Taylor, Jess Housekeeper, Deseret News

A Deseret News profile (Eva Terry, March 17, 2026) says Taylor founded Valar Atomics on the Fourth of July in 2023 and calls it an El Segundo-based startup; it names Jess Housekeeper as Valar's director of Utah operations and says the reactor's stackable concrete shielding blocks are made in Salt Lake City. This agrees with Contrary Research's July 2023 date and ANS's El Segundo headquarters; other records, including an unfinished June 2026 page on Valar's site and Valar's March 2026 trademark filing, give a Hawthorne, California address. The legal entity is confirmed elsewhere (a Delaware corporation), but no state record showing the formation date was found in the records read.

In plain termsA Utah newspaper reports that Valar was founded on July 4, 2023. The article does not say where the date comes from, and no state record showing the formation date was found in the records read.
verified 2026-10-02: Second check, late September 2026: Deseret profile re-read: July 4, 2023, El Segundo, Jess Housekeeper as director of Utah operations, shielding blocks made in Salt Lake City. All match. Plain no longer asserts the date's origin.