Operator
Greetings, and welcome to the Terrestrial Energy's second quarter 2026 earnings call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. Please note this conference is being recorded. I will now turn the conference over to your host, Tyler Grombach, VP, Investor Relations and Public Relations. Please go ahead.
Thank you, Operator. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Terrestrial Energy's second quarter 2026 earnings conference call. I'm Tyler Grombach, Vice President of Investor Relations and Public Relations. Joining me today are Simon Irish, Chief Executive Officer, and Brian Thrasher, Chief Financial Officer. Simon will begin with a review of our strategic and operational progress during the quarter, and Brian will follow with a discussion of our financial results. We will then open the call for questions. Before we begin, I'd like to remind you that we have posted the quarterly results press release and summary slides to the Investor Relations section of our website at terrestrialenergy.com. I'd also like to remind you that today's discussion will include forward-looking statements about our business, operations, and financial outlook. These statements are based on management's current expectations and are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. We encourage you to review the risk factors described in our SEC filings for a more complete discussion of those risks. With that, I'll turn the call over to Simon.
Thank you, Tyler. And good morning, everyone. When we last spoke in May, I reported progress against the three-pillar framework of business plan execution that we set out in March guidance. Today, I'll do the same for the second quarter and then spend the greater part of my time on our business model and our recent update to unit economics. Brian then will follow with our financial results. Over the past several months, we've been in front of investors more than to any point in the company's history. and that was deliberate. The nuclear tech sector is in a period of secular development. It is still a young and expanding sector for portfolio allocation, as the market recognizes the structural long-term bull case for SMRs and nuclear energy supply. In this context, we're hearing a strong desire to understand the factors that differentiate nuclear plant designs, nuclear technology, regulatory and supply chain strategies, and business models. We understand the importance of this to investors' analysis for nuclear tech stocks, and during this call, we'll be discussing some of the unique factors that strongly position terrestrial energy. I will summarize the five nuclear plant design factors that differentiate the IMSR plant, talk further on our business model, and then our differentiated fuel supply strategy. All this differentiation is in pursuit of one aim, the mission set by the company at its founding in 2013, to use nuclear innovation to solve the only problem worth solving with private capital, the affordability and capital efficiency of a nuclear plant, and by extension, the cost of nuclear power, and solve that problem quickly and at scale. We are differentiated as everything we do, every decision we have made, points back to that founding problem statement in a clear and logically compelling way. This goal is the first point of differentiation. First, let me now talk through second quarter progress across the three pillars of business plan execution. Referring to slides four and five of this quarter's investor update, and I will start with our engineering and regulatory programs. Project Tetra and Project Tefla are test reactor and fuel line pilot projects, both in partnership with the DOE, advanced in the quarter. Tetra will support the data collection required for the NRC operating license application for the IMSR plant. Project TEFLA will develop the fuel production processes for IMSR fuel, salt, commercial supply. On the regulatory side, on May 12, the NRC issued its Safety Evaluation Report, approving our Topic Report on Postulated Initiation Events methodology. This follows the previously issued Safety Evaluation Report on IMSR principal design criteria, an early development, and a point of differentiation. As I described during our first quarter earnings call, these approved NRC analyses form foundational elements of the IMSR plant's licensing basis and can be referenced in future applications without re-evaluation. Our graphite irradiation testing continued at NRG patent, one of the world's most powerful test reactors. This work is essential for terrestrial energy's reactor materials qualification, licensing readiness, as well as supplier down selection. Over the quarter, we adjusted our NRG testing program, adding further irradiation cycles, which is also evidenced in quarter-on-quarter variances with R&D expenditures. Turning to the second pillar, supply chain developments, The procurement of fuel, components, and services continues for both the Tetra and Tefla projects. This quarter, we announced an engineering service agreement with Zachary Nuclear, which supports the development of projects at the Texas A&M Relis site, and importantly, the site characterization and data collection work to assemble an NRC construction permit application for the planned commercial IMSR plant on that site. Turning to the third pillar, our commercial pipeline of IMSR plant projects. In June, we signed ground lease and research agreements with Texas A&M for exclusive use of a 77-acre site at the Rellis campus. This development provides the path to complete site characterization work and environmental evaluations for the IMSL plant and other facilities on the Texas A&M site in advance of construction. In May, we announced the relationship with Riot Platforms to supply electric power for data center operation. The party's intention is to develop a best-in-class pairing of a small and modular reactor plant with a large data center, taking advantage of the competitive operating characteristics of the IMSR plant, notably its capacity to use natural gas as a bridge fuel, initially to deliver fast commercial operation and power supply, and then longer term as a backup after nuclear systems are in operation. This arrangement would take advantage of a differentiating feature of the IMSR plant design, namely the ability for its non-nuclear thermal and electric facility to be customized. This is not possible with the balance of plant systems tied to light water reactors. Our next step with Riot will be to downselect to a first site as part of a program targeting four gigawatts of IMSR plant generation in support of Riot data center operations. With the Riot platform development, the indicative generating capacity of our pipeline of commercial projects grows to 7.8 gigawatts. Given these and other characteristics of the IMSR plant design, our commercial opportunities cover three large market verticals, data centers, industrial process heat, and the replacement of retiring coal plant capacity. I would like now to turn to our updates on unity economics and start with a brief recap of our business model. Referring to slide six of this quarter's investor update, Restoral Energy does not plan to build, own, or operate IMSL plants. We will leave these activities to others with long established and recognized industry capabilities in construction and operation. In this respect, our business model is relatively conventional for a React developer. From this position, we can operate a capital-like business model, allocating capital efficiently to build high-margin businesses where we have a competitive and defendable advantage and typically based on proprietary IP concentration and production capabilities. With additional engineering work over the last 12 months and directed a project such as Tetla. We have updated and re-estimated our IMSR plant unit economics and by extension our serviceable addressable market. Our business is to manufacture and supply to operating plants IMSR core units, a major reactant component, and designed to be replaced every seven years over the plant's 56-year design life. This implies the supply of 16 IMSR core units for accumulative revenues of approximately $1.6 billion. The IMSR core unit contains the foundational IP of our company, an innovation that unleashes the extraordinary industrial potential of molten salt reactor technology. Our IMSR fuel salt supply business will capture proprietary expertise, enabled now by Tefla and other innovations. Both qualify as principal businesses because each combines concentrated proprietary IP with proprietary production capabilities. On slide six, you will note that estimated cumulative lifetime revenues per unit are now $2.7 billion, up from $2.1 billion, with a blended gross profit margin of 33% up from 22% in our prior model. Of those revenues, 79% occur following the construction of the plant and will be secured through long-dated supply contracts for the periodic replacement of the core units and regular fuel-salt supply. The dominant activity at 58% of total revenues is core unit supply, with fuel-salt supply being 21%. These businesses will drive most of the value creation in our future business. Our review of unit economics included a re-estimation of various profit margins for the core unit and fuel supply businesses to 33% and 40% respectively, higher than the margins for pre-construction and construction services, and this further points to the dominance of these two principal businesses. We expect to announce developments in the coming quarters as we move forward with our programs to build these two important supply businesses with their production facilities. Referring to slide seven. The updated unit revenue estimates have increased our service of addressable market to $2.3 trillion by 2050, up from $1.9 trillion, a $400 billion increase. This reflects the market that our plant design and supply businesses are built to serve at scale. I want to spend a few moments on a fuel strategy and development of IMSR fuel salt supply. As in our view, this is one of the most differentiated and underappreciated parts of the IMSR plant story. Referring to slide eight, conventional nuclear fuel production can be represented as a three-step process. First, the production of the isotopic form of the fuel, whether LEU, HALU, or even plutonium. Second, the production of the chemical form of the fuel, whether oxide, fluoride, or metallic forms. And third, the production of the physical form of the fuel, whether complex fuel in reactor assemblies or complex triso fuel elements. Each of these three steps requires a physical and discrete plant that has to be built, licensed, and operated. For many novel fuel forms today, this requires the construction and operation of three new plants, one for each step. In contrast to virtually all other SMRs in the nuclear tech sector today, whether those using Generation 3 or 4 technologies, IMSR fuel-salt production stops at step two. This is an important point of differentiation. As the IMSR is a molten salt reactor, a liquid-fueled reactor, rather than a solid-fueled reactor, its fuel does not have a physical form factor, so no step three. The reactive fuel feed to IMSR plants is in the form of powdered output from the chemical production process from step two, which in our case involves the fluorinated form of uranium and the addition of fluoride carrier salts under a tightly confined production process to create the IMSR fuel salt, a powder. This approach, therefore, avoids the very considerable risk, cost, and complexity of step three, and further points to a strong, scalable, and relatively capital-like, inexpensive fuel supply chain to support IMSR plant operation at feed scale. I would like to draw attention again to the first step, the isotopic step, where we chose many years ago to use the long-established isotopic standard for civilian reactor fuel, LEU, enriched to less than 5%. This avoids the costs, uncertainties, and complexity of HALU chosen by other Generation 4 reactor developers, and the more complex and costly regulatory requirements that cascade sequentially into steps two and three of the fuel production process. While we rely on the industry's common isotopic form for our fuel, we've been working with Westinghouse on supply of the required chemical form, enriched uranium tetrafluoride. With this arrangement, terrestrial energy has one plant to build, a plant to complete step two. With the production process now catalyzed by Teflor, our fuel pilot project in partnership with the DOE and supported by Westinghouse Supply, we are heavily differentiated with this fuel supply strategy. In addition to our fuel supply differentiator, unmatched in the nuclear tech sector of the advanced reactors. We have five foundational nuclear plant and reactor technology differentiators, referring now to slide 10. First, our plant is small and right-sized at 390 megawatt electric. For the market opportunity for financeable and near and co-located power generation, The IMSR plant is one-sixth the size of a conventional nuclear plant. Next, the IMSR plant's nuclear systems operate with a high energy density, enabling the design to capture the benefits of modular construction that are not possible with other Generation 4 reactor technologies. This facilitates the powerful efficiencies of factory production of modular components for swift on-site assembly. However, our differentiation does not stop here. Referring now to slide 11. The heart of our plant is a nuclear technology that offers a triple operating advantage, critical for economic performance and capital efficiency that we seek to deliver. IMSR plant supplies thermal energy at a best-in-class temperature of 585 degrees Celsius. is nuclear systems operate at low pressure and with a high level of inherent safety that can only be delivered using molten salt reactor technology. These are powerful economic virtues that must not be ignored. This triple operating advantage differentiates our reactor technology in the nuclear tech sector. Together, these five factors are what allow us to achieve our mission and bring to the market the most capital-efficient plant in the SMR sector, and with our fuel supply strategy to do it quickly and at scale, as shown on slide 12. To close, in March, we set guidance for the year and across the three pillars of business plan execution. We're pleased with our progress this quarter against that benchmark. We have observed high sector and factor volatility in equity markets over recent months. However, our experiences are that the structural bull market for nuclear power with SMR innovations is solid, secular, and is growing. Against this demand, we'll be deploying the most capital-efficient plant in the SMR sector today. We recognize that the road ahead is one of program execution and traveled through the development of competitive skills and capabilities. Referring now to slide 14. During the quarter, we continued to expand our organization. On the 29th of July, we announced the addition of Pam Cohen as Executive Vice President of Engineering. Pam joined us with more than 35 years' experience in the commercial nuclear sector, including senior leadership positions at Westinghouse and Holtec. Concurrently, Kathy McCarthy joined our board of directors. Kathy has a career in major projects in nuclear technology development at Idaho National Lab, Oak Ridge National Lab, and other world-leading national labs. Most recently, she was Associate Lab Director of Fusion and Fission Energy at Oak Ridge. and currently she is responsible for the overall management of the United States participation in ITA, the 27-nation international and benchmark fusion reactor project in France. We're pleased to be reporting this progress over the quarter and to be providing these updates. With that, I will turn the call over to Brian Thrasher, our Chief Financial Officer, to review our financial results.
Thank you, Simon, and good morning, everyone. Turning to the financials, and consistent with last quarter, I will present on a sequential basis, comparing to the first quarter of 2026, as this comparison is more informative given the transformation in the business in 2025. The theme this quarter continues to be discipline, spend aligned to our programs, and a clean balance sheet. As summarized on slide 16, at quarter end, we have total cash, cash equivalents, and short and long-term investments of $283.4 million. This compares to $289.9 million at the end of the first quarter. Cash burn for the quarter was $6.4 million, or approximately $2.2 million per month. This compares the cash burn of $7.9 million for the first quarter of 2026, approximately $2.6 million per month. The decline largely reflects a shift in the timing of some testing activities, and I will provide additional color during my update. Looking ahead, we expect our cash burn will increase during the second half of the year. Our agreement with Texas A&M for the RELIS land leases has allowed us to work on the final stages of site analysis and characterization work, and that spend is now underway. This is consistent with the guidance we gave in the first quarter. Cash burn would increase through calendar 2026 as we scale testing programs, project activities, and expand our organizational capabilities. I'll now turn to operating expenses. Research and development expenses were down approximately $1.1 million quarter-on-quarter. This is related to timing and scope variances on some key tests, notably the addition of three graphite irradiation cycles at the NRG Pedden Test Reactor. We have also elected to build a greater irradiation and materials knowledge base in-house, which further contributed to the decreased spending sequentially. General and administrative expenses were up approximately $700,000 quarter-on-quarter. The majority of this increase was from stock-based compensation, which increased by $500,000. These increases were driven by headcount growth as we scale organizational capacity to support our programs. Turning to our capitalization table, as shown on slide 17, the issued and outstanding share count was unchanged during the second quarter of 2026. The fully diluted share count increased modestly by approximately 300,000 shares in the quarter due to stock option grants I previously mentioned. In summary, cash, cash equivalents, and cash investments make up the vast majority of our assets. We have modest current liabilities and lease obligations combined with no debt. Our balance sheet remains simple and clean. With that, operator, please open the line for questions.
Operator
Thank you. We will now be conducting a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. Please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up question. You may press star 2 if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. And our first question will come from Jeff Gramp with Northland Capital Markets.
Hey, good morning, guys. Simon, I wanted to spend a minute here on the change in the economics, the increase there. I know you covered it a bit in the prepared remarks, but I want to make sure I understood that. Is that more of a function of, I guess you always say, fine-tuning some of the estimates?
Has anything fundamentally changed about the approach, your scope, or any other details we should be aware of to better contextualize that? well good question Jeff well it's from this model perspective nothing has changed it is an iteration in in and the catalyst here has been the the engineering work that we've undertaken over the last 18 months and in particular the engineering work that's going into Tesla which is the fuel line pilot so perhaps that's the catalyst and the trigger for us to do a to reissue the entire set of unity economics, it's also an opportunity for us to talk further about our principal businesses and why we believe that they are attractive businesses and will provide the drivers of value creation going forward.
Got it. I appreciate those details. For my follow-up, on the DOE projects, Tetra and Tesla, can you cover, like, what kind of would be the near-medium-term milestones to just track progress towards any potential, I guess, initiation of construction activities or anything else we should be keeping an eye out for?
Yes, we haven't provided sort of further guidance on exactly what those future milestones are, but other than to say that we are continuing to execute based on both projects. Both projects seem to be very important for us, not least because of the support of the DOE in project execution. Tetra deals with some of the data collection activities that we need to complete to support the license application. And Tefla, as I mentioned earlier, is the opportunity for us at pilot scale to define precisely the fuel production processes that we will be looking to scale up into the commercial plant for IMSR fuel salt supply. But we haven't provided details on exactly what milestones, precisely when to expect those on Tetra and Tesla, but simply to say that those projects continue to be very much focused attention on our end, important projects, and we're working on continuing to execute on them.
Understood. We'll stay tuned.
Operator
And as a reminder, that is star one if you would like to ask a question. We'll go next to Alex Furman with Lucid Capital Markets.
Thanks very much for taking my question. I wanted to ask you about the use of natural gas as a bridge fuel. Can you tell us how long you expect your plants to be using that gas as a bridge fuel, and what do the unit economics of your plants look like during that interim period?
Yes. So Alex, I think you're talking to a very interesting characteristic of our plant. So we can use natural gas in the back end because the back end of our plants, it's outside. We believe this is outside the nuclear regulatory envelope. You can do this with certain Generation 4 systems. So in terms of the use of natural gas, I've given guidance previously on what a typical SMR project would look like, which is five plus five years. We would expect to be able to, in that first five years, to put into production commercial operation the back end of our plant where the steam systems will be driven by natural gas combustion now the this is would be a capital efficient way of doing it it wouldn't be a combined cycle plant that would be an operation the very efficient way of using natural gas this would be a capital efficient way of doing it namely you'll be using all the capex you'd be deploying the systems you'd be deploying would be dual purpose systems they can be driven by natural gas and they can driven by thermal energy from nuclear systems so you will see if you're simply using natural gas to break steam you'll see the type of thermal efficiency you go to the coal plant you will see the thermal efficiencies you'll get to the combined cycle plant but nonetheless it is a capital efficient way of building a dual fuel back end to our plants dual fuel namely nuclear systems and natural gas systems and we would anticipate because the back end of that plant would consist of standard industrial equipment being able to bring power online commercially within five years and we believe that's deeply relevant to many particularly in the AI data center sector where you hear the you know the you hear the requirements their end speed to power namely what is the super important to them is get access to power quickly and they're not for the moment price sensitive there's a long run I expect you to be deeply price sensitive but that's not in the short run so this allows us to to for a data center operator and others in the industrial world as well it's not just data centers This allows us to say we're able to deliver your requirement tactically in the near term, which is power, and we're also able to deliver what you need strategically in the 2030s in the long run, okay, where you have clean, firm, cost-competitive nuclear power, and that's the advantage of this dual-fuel approach.
Okay, that's really helpful. Thanks. And then I appreciated the description of the various stages of the nuclear fuel supply chain. Can you just kind of summarize for us a little bit? Is the takeaway there that your design can run on fuel that is commercially available today, or are you depending on some new fuel that's going to come online in the future?
Well, firstly, the nutronic form of it is commercially available today. That's step one. Step two, we require a chemical form of our fuel, which is uranium tetrafluoride. Now, fluorination as a chemical process, both conversion and deconversion, has been baked into the nuclear supply chain for decades and decades. The difference here is that we require uranium tetrafluoride where the uranium is enriched at 5%. Uranium tetrafluoride typically exists in the nuclear fuel supply chain on the other side of the enrichment process, namely the tetrafluoride is using natural uranium. But nonetheless, fluorination as a chemical process is very well understood. We're working with Westinghouse on uranium tetrafluoride supply, and that's the piece that we need to work on from a supply chain perspective. But it's, I think, a much, much smaller, much, much more straightforward step compared to the various steps that need to be brought to the table if you're using HALU and using halo in physical fuel form, namely metallic uranium used in physical reactor assemblies or trisofuel, so we think it's a much, much simpler process. And it requires just one plant, namely a plant which will produce uranium tetrafluoride enriched to less than 5%, and our product from that plant will be the IMSR fuel sort, where we'd be taking uranium tetrafluoride enriched to no more than 5%, and in carrier sorts, which are stand-industrial chemicals in fluoride form as well, the production process would be a production process which would naturally, because it's producing a nuclear-regulated product, fuel, that production process would have a very tight set of production requirements and would be regulated as such.
Okay, that's really helpful. Thank you very much.
Operator
And we'll go next to Derek Soderberg with Cantor Fitzgerald.
Hi, this is Drew Nordquist calling for Derek. Congrats on the quarter, and thank you guys for taking our questions. Now that the PDC and PIE are approved, what are the additional topical reports that are going to be needed? And then just wondering if you guys can provide an update on where you are in field qualification. Okay, field qualification.
So, Drew, a good question. And firstly, with respect to the two topical reports, yes, we've completed two of them last year, the principle design criteria and this year it was postulation-initiating event. But in March, we gave guidance on three topical reports this year, guidance that we would be submitting the topical reports to the NRC, where we have clearly with the postulated initiating event methodology, we have achieved one of those three. We still expect to be submitting the full three. and so you can expect from the company over the coming quarters this year to be submitting you know two further at least two further topical reports and true could you repeat the second question please I was worried you could provide a update on where you are at with fuel qualification okay fuel qualification so fuel qualification is is different with with a a liquid fuel reactor system. Fuel qualification typically is a long pole in the regulatory tent of solid fuel reactors because you have to prove the performance of that fuel pin in all operating conditions in the reactor core. It's notoriously long and complex for solid fuel reactor systems. That's not the case for us. Fuel qualification for us is to demonstrate that we understand all the technothermal characteristics of our salt, namely we can present to the NRC what the specific heat capacity is of the salt, and those characteristics allow us to define the heat transport properties of the fuel. So a different process, I would argue, a more straightforward process than the very complicated process associated with fuel qualification for physical fuel. Recall that fuel qualification of physical fuel, when you're talking about the performance of that padding for physical fuel, that's the first containment boundary. So fuel qualification is about proving that the performance of that containment boundary. We don't have that fuel qualification requirement. So it's a very different process. Not so well understood because we're talking about a liquid fuel. But the qualification process is largely ensuring that we collect all the data in a compliant way to demonstrate to the regulator that we understand the heat transport properties of our fuel. Thank you for the card, Simon. Yeah, thank you.
Operator
And moving on to Craig Irwin with Roth Capital Partners.
Good morning, and thank you for taking my questions. So, Simon, I wanted to ask a little bit about your MOU with Riot. You know, this seems like a really exciting customer. I was wondering if there was maybe more color or more detail you might be able to share with us. For example, have you been discussing with them potential initial sites and timeline for development of those sites? Has there been work done on the evaluation of subsidies or government support, low-cost financing for your first units? and do you have any color on how those units are likely to be financed you know other than through through government support yes so the we have given guidance on our relationship with riots in the form of the parties at this point are doing some preliminary site characterization work the intention would a grant to down select to a target candidate for site.
We haven't disclosed what that site is, and probably at this point in time, I wouldn't want to give any further guidance. Probably that would include on timelines as well. In terms of how this type of project is going to be financed, I think this type of project would be financed clearly would be state interest in financing this type of project and I think that's true very much true at the federal level as well but in terms of the broad mechanisms of capital formation around this type of project the capital formation in in my view is not going to be association with a classic project finance these are highly strategic projects for everyone who's going to be involved they're obviously very strategic for us because this is these represent you know our project with riots represents you know a project which is sort of the first one two three four five for terrestrial energy so very important project that's also very true for riots as well success with their first project with us provides the pathway variety to that four gigawatts, highly strategic four gigawatts in the 2030s. That's true also for the suppliers. Success for the first project is going to be highly strategic for the suppliers. It's going to be true for the constructor as well, and it's going to be true for the operator. So I see capital formation associated with these projects, particularly with equity capital formation associated with the participation in those in the consortium we are part of that consortium okay but we're we're not looking to pull and operate the plant but um cap formation um for um you know for these first plants is going to be associated with the strategic value that they represent to everyone who's going to be involved and do recall the strategic values associated with our pursuit of an opportunity in the service of a dressable market, which is running past $2 trillion. So getting it right with plants 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 gives you those table stakes into a massive market for SMR deployment in the 2030s. That is going to be the mechanism, in my opinion, for capital formation. It's going to be supported, and I think vigorously, It's going to be supported by various agencies and policy initiatives at the federal government I think they're aware of what some of them are, and it's also going to be supported at the state level as well. So that's how I see the financing developing with these projects.
Thank you for that. If I could revisit the IMSR fuel salt supply approach, you know, the conventional approach, three steps three plants um the way that you're going to approach things for for your fuel two steps one plant um you know can you maybe unpack the economics a little bit for us um do do you have potential you know line of sight on uh you know maybe better than 50 lower costs on on an energy energetically similar um fuel type uh versus uh versus conventional plants Well, we've given guidance on total revenues for that fuel business grant, and we've given guidance at 40% gross profit margin, which is, you know, that's middle of the park.
We don't want to stretch this point too much. We think that 40% is very reasonable when you're looking across the market and you say, what are the typical gross profit margins on fuel supply? But certainly, you know, the whole fuel supply process, our end, consists of far fewer steps, fewer plants associated with the fuel supply business that you typically see with solid fuel reactors. There's going to be, from a cost perspective to the customer, the owner-operator of a nuclear plant, there's going to be a tremendous advantage because per gigawatt year, our fuel is going to be, from the schematic representation on that slide, our fuel is going to be significantly less expensive than the fuel you'd have from solid fuel reactors and particularly from generation four systems where you have to, you know, from a standing start, you have to set up potentially three new plants. That's going to be costly and it's going to be represented in the price of the fuel. Understood.
Understood. Well, congratulations on the progress. We look forward to, you know, your success. Thank you, Grant.
Operator
And that now concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the floor back over to Simon Irish for closing comments.
Thank you for joining us today and for your interest in the company. We set clear expectations earlier in the year, and we continue to meet them. We have a small modular reactor plant designed with exceptional potential, and we look forward to demonstrating progress, milestone by milestone, through 2026 and beyond. Thank you.
Operator
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your participation. This does conclude today's stellar conference. You may disconnect your lines and have a wonderful day.