Valar proposes 456-reactor Project Beehive campus on Utah BLM land
The campus would produce around 9.6 GW for co-located data centers and more thermal heat for industry, per NPR.
Key facts
- State lease application, first reported September 24, covers 480 acres near Price and Wellington
- Federal application covers more than 9,000 acres of BLM land; BLM reviewing it for completeness
- Nonnuclear construction targeted to begin by end of this year; first reactors online in 2028, per NPR
- Ward 250, a 100-kWt TRISO-fueled high-temperature gas reactor, reached criticality at the San Rafael Energy Lab
- NPR reports 25 MWe per reactor, above the 15 MW thermal Valar's CEO has cited
Valar Atomics plans a Utah campus with 456 of its reactors on more than 9,000 acres of Bureau of Land Management land, with co-located data centers and a fuel production facility, NPR reported on September 30.
Project Beehive is larger than first indicated. On September 24, the Salt Lake Tribune reported Valar had applied to lease 480 acres owned by the state of Utah near Price and Wellington, land entirely surrounded by BLM land. The federal application covers roughly the same area, east of Price and north of Wellington.
The BLM's Utah office told NPR it is "currently reviewing the application for completeness" and that the public will have "meaningful opportunities to provide input." Valar told NPR that "no construction begins before permits and approvals, and the public process leads along our internal targets set the pace." Valar aims to begin nonnuclear construction by the end of this year and to have first reactors on line in 2028, NPR reported.
Licensing route undetermined
Ward 250, Valar's first demonstration reactor, advanced through Department of Energy authorization. How DOE authorization carries into NRC licensing for commercial deployments is unsettled among DOE, NRC and industry. Whether Valar pursues 10 CFR Part 53, the forthcoming Part 57, or Parts 50 or 52 is unknown, and the company has not formally engaged publicly in NRC preapplication activities.
Valar is a plaintiff in State of Texas et al v. U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, filed in December 2024, which challenges the NRC's authority to license small reactors. Plaintiffs included Texas, Utah and Louisiana, the Arizona State Legislature, and start-ups Last Energy, Deep Fission and Valar. The states filed a notice of voluntary dismissal ahead of any ruling; the developers are conferring on next steps, according to a September 2 status report.
Capacity figures diverge
Ward 250 is a 100-kWt TRISO-fueled high-temperature gas reactor. CEO Isaiah Taylor has said Ward 250 is "sized to 15 MW thermal." NPR reported the 456 reactors would "produce around 9.6 gigawatts of power for the data centers and even more thermal heat for other industrial applications" — at least 21 MWe each, against NPR's identification of the design as rated at 25 MWe.
Valar, headquartered in El Segundo, Calif., reached criticality with Ward 250 at the Utah San Rafael Energy Lab under the Reactor Pilot Program, one of four companies to meet the July 4 deadline set by Executive Order 14301. It announced an Nvidia partnership for a smaller Utah data center after that milestone; Nvidia has not been publicly named as a party to Project Beehive.
