Nuclear reactor development gets state incentive

A company developing small nuclear reactors to generate electricity is getting a boost from the state.

Valar Atomics Inc. recently was approved for a tax credit for up to $106.7 million over 10 years from the Governor's Office of Economic Development for its project within the San Rafael Energy Research Lab near Orangeville in Emery County.

According to GOED documents, the company's capital investment in the Emery County project is estimated at nearly $1.3 billion.

Valar's "Ward 250" is a research reactor built for validating engineering and is being deployed under the U.S. Department of Energy's Advanced Reactor Pilot Program.

Cory Gardner, head of commercial development for Valar, told the GOED board that the first reactor "is really intended to just tap the gas pedal a little bit" and that Valar's ultimate goal is "to be here forever, turn on reactors forever — as many as we possibly can."

Nuclear energy startup Valar envisions standardized microreactors on centralized company "gigasites" that can directly power data centers, hydrogen production and synthetic fuels. Gardner said demand is strong, adding that "our customers need power yesterday."

Lance Soffe, GOED's senior vice president of economic growth, said many of GOED's corporate recruitment projects "are asking for a lot of energy … so we need as much energy generation as we can get."

Valar contends that only nuclear power "offers the combination of low cost, rapid timeline, and operational reliability necessary to power America's technological and industrial renaissance."

Late last year, Valar completed experiments that validated the core physics and control systems that underpin Ward 250's design. In June, the Ward 250 achieved full-power fueled criticality at the San Rafael lab — the first time a DOE-authorized advanced reactor has been built and operated outside of the national laboratory system.

Also in June, Ward 250 generated electricity to power an Nvidia Blackwell, an architecture used in generative AI and accelerated computing. Valar said it was the first and only time that an advanced reactor has directly powered AI infrastructure and also the first time in history a startup generated nuclear power.

Gardner told the GOED board that the first reactor, if fully fueled and powered, could produce 5 megawatts of electricity and a commercial unit could produce 25 MW.

"It is our plan and intention and it's part of why we're making this [incentive] application, we're going to build, install and turn on additional reactors in this geography," he said, adding that Valar is working to develop waterless architectures that pair nuclear generation with the power needs of AI computing.

"We are going to start small," he said. "We are hiring in, I would say, the 'dozens' range today for jobs, but eventually that will need to be hundreds…."

The GOED incentive is tied to the creation of 275 jobs over 10 years, with those jobs paying an average of $137,567. Total wages for the jobs are estimated at nearly $337.9 million over 10 years, and new state tax revenue is projected at nearly $213.5 million during that time.

"We chose Utah because Utah was open for business and is really at the forefront in the nation for advanced energy development," Gardner said. "We want to continue to lean into the state and the county and that region of Utah in bringing additional nuclear energy to the area."

Jordan Leonard, Emery County commissioner, noted that the county is "an energy-producing county, and so we're excited for this development."

"Our community is in support, and then the local job creation is a big deal," he said. "I bet there's a few dozen of our locals that work out at Valar and there's more to come. So [with] that local job creation, there are people moving back to our communities that have those skills sets and we're getting young families back into our communities."

"It's an exciting time because I don't think many of our citizens understand the demands and requirements that we need for energy," said Carine Clark, chair of the GOED board. "It's pretty exciting to have this incentive, and I think it's just the very beginning of some of the most exciting energy work that we'll be able to do."

GOED does not provide upfront cash incentives. Each year that an incentivized company meets the obligations in its contract with GOED, it will qualify to receive a portion of the new, additional state taxes the company paid to the state.

The state incentive was approved by the GOED board on July 9, yet nearly a month later, GOED had not issued or posted on its website a news release about the incentive. Last October, GOED (at the time known as the Governor's Office of Economic Opportunity) did not issue a release about a pair of nuclear-energy incentives it approved for a California-based company's subsidiary to build a plant in Utah County to manufacture equipment for uranium enrichment. The incentives for Utah Energy LLC, the subsidiary of General Matter Inc., are a tax credit of up to nearly $81 million over 20 years for a $1.64 billion project that ultimately would create 200 jobs, and a tax credit for up to $16 million over 20 years tied to the creation of 793 jobs in a $249 million project.