A hardware-first “company town” taking shape south of Lockhart may soon come with a very unusual neighbor: a small nuclear research reactor tucked inside its campus plans.
Developers behind Proto‑Town have filed early paperwork with state regulators that sketches out roughly 7,600 square feet of reactor space at a site on Mineral Springs Road, carrying an estimated price tag of about $23 million. The documents are preliminary, but they mark the first public sign that nuclear research is on the table for the project.
According to The Real Deal, Earthship Corporation submitted plans to the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation for a 7,600 square foot nuclear research reactor at 2600 Mineral Springs Road, listing an estimated construction cost of around $23 million. As The Real Deal notes, the filing is an early administrative registration that can change as the proposal moves through planning and permitting.
County documents show Proto‑Town is already mapped out as a sizable experiment in itself. Per Caldwell County, commissioners approved a development agreement that envisions a 538 acre innovation campus geared to advanced manufacturing and testing, complete with demonstration buildings and temporary housing for researchers. Meeting packets and recaps indicate the project has grown since those first approvals, with additional parcels folded in for future phases.
Local reporting has cast Proto‑Town’s founders, former Duke students Merle Nye and Joshua Farahzad, as aiming to build a place where hardware startups can prototype and scale physical technology without the usual big city friction. The Post Register also reports that former state representative John Cyrier helped facilitate the land purchase and is listed as an owner of an entity tied to the property.
On the nuclear side of the house, the project appears to be lining up specialist talent. According to Thomas Eiden's website, Eiden, founder of Atomic Alchemy, a company that produces radioisotopes for medical and research use, has been recruited to work on the effort. His background operating research reactors and working at national labs matches the kind of resume a developer would need to credibly pursue a research reactor.
Regulatory path and oversight
Any nuclear research reactor in the United States must clear a high federal bar before it ever turns on. New facilities are subject to licensing and ongoing oversight, with applications reviewed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission or an agreement state counterpart.
The licensing steps for research and test reactors are detailed by the NRC, which lays out how developers must address safety, design, emergency planning and environmental review. There is already a regional precedent for this kind of setup. As UT Austin notes, the University of Texas operates a one megawatt research reactor at its J. J. Pickle Research Campus, a reminder that nuclear research can be folded into a campus-style environment, at least under tight regulatory guardrails.
What approvals would be needed
Even with local development agreements in hand, a research reactor is far from a simple add on. The project would need federal reactor licensing, state environmental clearances and local land use approvals before construction could begin in earnest.
Materials published by Caldwell County emphasize that environmental and air quality permits fall to state agencies rather than county officials, which means most of the bigger policy and safety debates would play out at the state and federal level, not in the commissioners courtroom.
For now, the filings sit in “early procedural step” territory. Developers still have to chase formal permits and undergo federal review before any dirt turns. According to The Real Deal, Earthship's recruitment of a nuclear scientist and its registration with the state licensing agency were flagged in public records, and the outlet reported that key players were not immediately available for comment.
In the meantime, Proto‑Town keeps growing in Caldwell County while regulators, county leaders and residents watch to see whether a nuclear chapter is really in its future. If the reactor concept advances, it would bring a very different kind of industrial footprint to the Austin corridor, one that is likely to draw close attention from both rulemakers and neighbors.
