--- title: Valar Built a Nuclear Safety System 12x Cheaper | daily.dev description: Valar built their own Reactor Protection System (RPS) for a nuclear reactor after being quoted $5 million and 2.5 years by a vendor. By developing it in-house,... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/valar-built-a-nuclear-safety-system-12x-cheaper-xo9f545fi twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Valar Built a Nuclear Safety System 12x Cheaper | daily.dev og:description: Valar built their own Reactor Protection System (RPS) for a nuclear reactor after being quoted $5 million and 2.5 years by a vendor. By developing it in-house,... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/valar-built-a-nuclear-safety-system-12x-cheaper-xo9f545fi og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/Xo9F545Fi.png og:image:alt: Valar Built a Nuclear Safety System 12x Cheaper og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Valar Built a Nuclear Safety System 12x Cheaper **[No Priors: AI, Machine Learning, Tech, & Startups](https://daily.dev/sources/nopriorspodcast)** · 1 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary Valar built their own Reactor Protection System (RPS) for a nuclear reactor after being quoted $5 million and 2.5 years by a vendor. By developing it in-house, they completed it for approximately $400,000 — roughly 12x cheaper. The RPS is a self-deterministic safety system with three voting sections that trigger a plant shutdown if two of three sections detect an unsafe state. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### What is a Reactor Protection System (RPS) in a nuclear plant? A Reactor Protection System is the safety-critical control system that continuously determines whether a nuclear plant is in a safe operating state. It uses a triple redundant architecture with three independent voting sections; if at least two of the three sections determine the plant is unsafe, the system automatically triggers a shutdown. _Explore more engineering breakdowns of safety-critical hardware systems on daily.dev._ ### How much did it cost a startup to build its own nuclear reactor protection system versus buying one from a vendor? A vendor quoted around $5 million and roughly two and a half years to deliver a reactor protection system. After two months of unsuccessful negotiation to speed up delivery, the team built its own version in-house for about $400,000, roughly a twelvefold cost reduction compared to the vendor quote. _Founders weighing build-versus-buy on critical infrastructure can find similar case studies on daily.dev._ ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Nuclear startup Valar Atomics in talks to raise new funding at $6B valuation](https://daily.dev/posts/nuclear-startup-valar-atomics-in-talks-to-raise-new-funding-at-6b-valuation-y9dxewcdq) · TechCrunch · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [Three questions about next-generation nuclear power, answered](https://daily.dev/posts/three-questions-about-next-generation-nuclear-power-answered-h3had11xu) · MIT Technology Review · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#embedded](https://daily.dev/tags/embedded) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/valar-built-a-nuclear-safety-system-12x-cheaper-xo9f545fi) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Valar Built a Nuclear Safety System 12x Cheaper","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/valar-built-a-nuclear-safety-system-12x-cheaper-xo9f545fi","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/valar-built-a-nuclear-safety-system-12x-cheaper-xo9f545fi"},"datePublished":"2026-08-04T17:55:33.018Z","dateModified":"2026-09-14T06:28:56.093Z","description":"Valar built their own Reactor Protection System (RPS) for a nuclear reactor after being quoted $5 million and 2.5 years by a vendor. 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