Project dossier · Orangeville (Emery County), Utah

Valar Atomics Orangeville SMR Operating

Nearly-waterless 30MW AI data center powered by Valar's Ward250 small modular reactor with Nvidia's direct liquid cooling.

Key facts

Operator
Valar Atomics
Tenant
Nvidia
Size
30 MW
Location
Orangeville (Emery County), Utah
Stage today
Operating

Source

What to do next

Next step: Already operating — the leverage now is enforcement: noise and water conditions, tax revenue tracking, and any expansion filing, which reopens the record.

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What has happened so far (13 events)

  • 2025-02-20announcement
    Valar Atomics emerged from stealth with a $19 million seed round led by Riot Ventures and announced plans to build small modular nuclear reactors, initially with a pilot site agreement in the Philippines. · source
  • 2025-06-18announcement
    U.S. Department of Energy issued a Request for Application for its Reactor Pilot Program, an expedited authorization pathway for advanced test reactors with a goal of at least three reactors reaching criticality by July 4, 2026. · source
  • 2025-07-08public-comment
    Emery County Commission hosted a town hall where Valar Atomics representatives answered citizen questions and safety concerns about the proposed Ward 250 test reactor at the San Rafael Energy Lab. · source
  • 2025-08-01announcement
    DOE announced Valar Atomics as one of 10 companies selected for its Reactor Pilot Program, authorizing construction and testing of the Ward 250 reactor at Utah San Rafael Energy Lab in Orangeville. · source
  • 2025-09-17construction
    Valar Atomics and the Utah San Rafael Energy Lab broke ground on the Ward 250 test reactor site in Orangeville, Emery County. · source
  • 2025-11-13financing
    Valar Atomics raised $130 million in Series A funding led by Snowpoint, Day One, and Dream Ventures, bringing total funding to over $150 million. · source
  • 2026-02-01permit
    Valar Atomics received preliminary Documented Safety Analysis (DSA) approval under the DOE Reactor Pilot Program for the Ward 250 test reactor. · source
  • 2026-02-15construction
    The Ward 250 reactor core was transported via three U.S. Air Force C-17 aircraft from March Air Reserve Base to Hill Air Force Base, then trucked to the Utah San Rafael Energy Lab, targeting operation by July 4, 2026. · source
  • 2026-02-19incentive
    Emery County Commission approved a letter of support for Valar Atomics as the Ward 250 reactor arrived in the Castle Country region, citing job and tax base benefits. · source
  • 2026-04-23permit
    Valar Atomics received final Documented Safety Analysis (DSA) approval, clearing the way for power ascension testing of the Ward 250 reactor. · source
  • 2026-06-18operational
    Valar Atomics Ward 250 high-temperature gas reactor achieved zero-power criticality at the San Rafael Energy Lab, becoming the second reactor to go critical under the DOE Reactor Pilot Program and the first DOE-authorized reactor built entirely outside a national laboratory. · source
  • 2026-07-01announcement
    Valar Atomics and Nvidia announced a partnership to explore a 30-megawatt, nearly waterless AI data center in Orangeville powered by roughly six Ward-class reactors, using Nvidia DSX liquid-cooling technology; the Ward 250 also powered an Nvidia DGX Spark AI chip, a first for U.S. nuclear power. · source
  • 2026-08-03financing
    Valar Atomics raised a $1 billion Series B round led by Sequoia Capital (plus a $200 million credit facility), tripling its valuation to $6 billion, to fund mass production of factory-built nuclear reactors for AI data centers. · source

Find the paper trail

Find the paper trail (2 filed · 11 places to look)

Permits already on file (2)

Filings we have a source for — the record, not a place to look for one.

  • 2026-04-23
    Valar Atomics received final Documented Safety Analysis (DSA) approval, clearing the way for power ascension testing of the Ward 250 reactor. · source
  • 2026-02-01
    Valar Atomics received preliminary Documented Safety Analysis (DSA) approval under the DOE Reactor Pilot Program for the Ward 250 test reactor. · source

State environmental permits

Backup generators, water withdrawal and stormwater are permitted by the state, usually earlier and in more detail than anything filed locally.

County & town filings

The rezoning application, site plan, traffic and noise studies, staff report and every revision.

Utility & grid records

The electricity request is filed with the grid operator and the utility long before the town hears about it — and states the real load.

  • No organised market covers this statenoteThere is no public queue to read. The record is the utility's integrated resource plan and its filings at the PUC — plus FERC eLibrary for anything federally docketed.
  • Utah Public Service Commission — docket searchSpecial contracts, large-load tariffs and rate cases are docketed here. Testimony and exhibits are public, and are usually more candid than the press release.
  • FERC eLibraryFederal filings: transmission agreements, interconnection service agreements, and co-location disputes.
  • Search the serving utility for a will-serve lettersearchThe will-serve or load-service letter is the utility's own written commitment. Ask the utility and the PUC for it by name — it is frequently the first document to exist.

Federal databases

Works anywhere, and covers the operator's record at its other sites.

  • EPA ECHO facility searchEvery federally-reported air, water and waste permit at a facility, plus its inspection and violation history. Search by address or draw a radius around the site.
  • EPA EnvirofactsThe same underlying records, queryable by county — useful for 'what else is permitted near this site' rather than one facility.
  • EPA Facility Registry ServiceResolves the shell LLC on a permit to the facility it belongs to. Worth a look when the filing name means nothing locally.

These are places to look, not evidence that anything has been filed. Links were checked on 2026-08-21; search links are queries, not records. What to ask for.

Around here

Other tracked projects in Utah

Cite this page: GridWatch AI, “Valar Atomics Orangeville SMR”, aigridwatch.com/projects/valar-atomics-orangeville-ut, retrieved 2026-10-11.

As of August 2026 (2m ago) · changes weekly — re-check before citing

A working set of identified proposals a community can track, not a census — most of the country's activity is not in here yet. Pennsylvania is the exception: its rows are synced from PA DEP's own data-center permit tracker, so the state's coverage is close to complete and carries the permit trail with it. **Each row carries its own provenance.** Rows showing a verification date link to reporting or the governing body's own record and were read on that date; rows marked *unverified* have no source on record — a lead to check, not a fact to cite. **Stage is derived, not asserted.** *Hearing scheduled*, *Awaiting decision*, *Approved* and *Withdrawn* are computed from each row's milestone dates on every rebuild, so a hearing date that has passed stops reading 'scheduled'. Hearings get moved and projects re-file under new names — treat a scheduled date as the earliest to act by, and confirm with the clerk before relying on it. Leads are mined into data/project_candidates.json and promoted here only after a human reads a primary source.

Part of the data center project tracker — open data, CC BY 4.0 (JSON · CSV).

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