Powering data centers on nuclear? That’s a tough sell in Utah’s coal country.
To power two new data centers, Carbon County is getting a giant gas plant and 456 small nuclear reactors. Locals are pushing back.
Cindy O'Neil, a resident of Carbon County in Utah, has witnessed the rise and fall of the coal industry in her community. Coal mines once employed many residents, but the shift to cheaper energy sources, like renewables and natural gas, led to the closure of the county's coal mines in 2023. Cindy and her neighbors are now concerned about new data center projects that are being built near their homes, with one of these projects being a nuclear-powered data center complex proposed by Valar Atomics.
The company plans to build 456 small modular reactors on Bureau of Land Management land in the county, with a square mile of state-owned land also being leased for the project. Utah's state government supports the project, and Valar's CEO announced that the company had achieved "self-sustaining criticality" in June 2022. However, not everyone in Carbon County supports the project.
Cheryl Lupo, a candidate for a seat on the county commission, argues that the majority of residents are opposed to both data centers and nuclear plants, citing the uranium weapons testing in Nevada during the 1950s that she believes caused her mother's and grandfather's deaths.
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