Valar Atomics is proposing a massive data center complex on more than 9,000 acres of federal public land near Price, Utah, NPR reported. The plan, called Project Beehive, includes about 456 small nuclear reactors, a nuclear fuel production facility and nuclear waste storage areas.
According to company documents cited by NPR, the reactors would generate about 9.6 gigawatts of electricity for the data centers, plus thermal energy for other industrial uses. For comparison, Utah generates an average of about 4 gigawatts of electricity, although its summer peak can reach about 10 gigawatts.
The federal side of the process is still in its early stages. The BLM’s Utah office confirmed that it received the application and is reviewing it for completeness. If it moves forward through the NEPA process, the public will have opportunities to comment. The company already has a timeline, however: non-nuclear work could begin at the end of the year, with the first reactors operating in 2028.
The 9,000-acre site is not the only one. According to Utah records, Valar also requested a special-use lease for about 640 acres of state land in Carbon County. The Trust Lands Administration board unanimously approved the lease on September 17, KSL reported. The federal plan is much larger, combining data centers, hundreds of reactors, fuel production and waste storage.
This is not Valar’s first proposal on public land. The National Data Center Tracker had already recorded an earlier proposal near Green River, Utah, for a data center and small nuclear reactors on about 10,200 acres of BLM land; the company eventually decided not to proceed there, and the project remains listed as withdrawn. A new proposal near Price now follows.
Pressure on public land is broader. The tracker now counts 16 data center sites on public land, each linked to a public document. Among them, Rhea Data’s Blacks Creek Campus would occupy 3,226 acres near Boise, Copia Digital’s Bergen Data Center 744 acres north of Las Vegas, and two projects in Arizona 620 and 275 acres respectively. Townsite Solar 2 in Nevada, on 89 acres near Lake Mead, faced a legal challenge, and the BLM requested that its own approval be vacated for further review.
The federal push comes from the top: an executive order by President Trump in July 2025 directed federal agencies to make suitable land available for data centers. Now there is also a move in the opposite direction. Senator Ron Wyden has introduced a bill that would prohibit the development, sale or transfer of federal public land for new data centers and related infrastructure nationwide. His office said the bill followed reports that more than 17,000 acres of public land in Oregon, Nevada, Arizona, Idaho, Wyoming and Utah are being considered for data centers.
None of this changes the legal landscape yet. Valar’s application remains with the BLM, other proposals are at various stages, and Wyden’s bill has only just been introduced. The team managing the tracker says it has added Project Beehive and will monitor developments.
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