Lightbridge Corporation

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by and welcome to the Lightbridge Corporation Business Update and First Quarter 2022 Conference Call. Please note that today's call is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce Matthew Abinanti, Director of Investor Relations for Lightbridge Corporation.

Thank you, Livia, and thanks to all of you for joining us today. The company's earnings press release was distributed after the market closed yesterday. and can be viewed on the Investor Relations page of the LightBridge website at www.ltbridge.com. Joining us on the call today is Seth Gray, Chief Executive Officer, along with Larry Goldman, Chief Financial Officer, Sherry Holloway, Controller, Andrei Mushikov, Executive Vice President for Nuclear Operations, and Jim Fornoff, Vice President for Nuclear Program Management. I would like to remind our listeners that any statements on this call that are not historical facts or forward-looking statements. Today's presentation includes forward-looking statements about the company's competitive position and product and service offering. During today's call, words such as expect, anticipate, believe, and intend will be used in our discussion of goals or events in the future. This presentation is based on current expectations and involved in certain risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ significantly from such estimates. These and other risks are set forth in more detail in LightBridge's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. LightBridge does not assume any obligation to update or revise any such forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new developments or otherwise. And with that, I would like to turn the call over to our first speaker, Seth Gray, Chief Executive Officer of LightBridge. Hello, Seth.

Hello, Matt, and thank you all for joining us to discuss LightBridge's first quarter 2022 results. Since it's only been a bit over a month since our last conference call, we'll keep the opening remarks brief to get to your questions. We are continuing to make steady progress on our fuel development activities, including the ongoing efforts at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, or PNNL, performing under our second funding voucher from the U.S. Department of Energy's Gateway for Accelerated Innovation in Nuclear, or GAIN, program. As a brief reminder, our work at PNNL advances a critical stage in the manufacturing process of Lightbridge fuel by demonstrating a casting process using depleted uranium zirconium material. Receiving this second gain voucher has served as an important validation for Lightbridge by the U.S. Department of Energy. Lightbridge is well aligned with the support the U.S. government is providing. to develop advanced nuclear technologies that can help the existing large reactors and new small modular reactors. We anticipate future fuel development milestones will include agreements to manufacture our nuclear fuel material samples for capsule irradiation in a test reactor, while continuing to develop and optimize our nuclear fuel manufacturing processes using depleted or natural uranium and culminating with the design and manufacturing of a multi-lobe fuel rod with enriched uranium for loop irradiation experiments in a test reactor. These irradiation testing experiments in the test reactor would generate data necessary to support regulatory licensing approval of our metallic fuel rods for demonstration in an operating commercial power reactor. We are actively working with the US government and the private sector to reach these key milestones. I want to congratulate NuScale Power for their successful listing on the New York Stock Exchange last week. NuScale is a leading innovator in small modular reactor designs, and I was very happy to see the investment community come together in support of this important technology. This further validates our added focus on fueling SMRs that are in development and licensing SMRs being developed by several companies have the potential collectively to generate massive amounts of power with the versatility to contribute significantly to the world meeting climate goals. We believe that light bridge fuel can provide SMRs all the benefits that our technology would bring to large reactors and with anticipated additional economic benefits and safety enhancements. Russia's invasion of Ukraine has led to growing concerns about energy security. And we at Lightbridge participate in some of these discussions. Countries need to wean off reliance on fossil fuels from nations that threaten their national security. The world's growing emphasis on ESG is also becoming increasingly important. Increasing concerns for energy security and ESG have brought nuclear power into focus as an indispensable part of a diversified energy base. Existing large reactors remain a focus for Lightbridge. While we don't expect that many large in the near term, we were pleased to see the Biden administration allocate $6 billion to help prevent nuclear power plants from closing. Nuclear power currently provides about 20% of the nation's power and over 50% of carbon-free electricity. As a result, the Biden administration has identified the current US fleet of 93 large reactors as a vital resource to achieve net zero emissions by 2050. Upkeep of the current nuclear power plants is of the utmost importance today. While bridging efforts to the next generation of reactors, I'll turn the call over now to Andrei Mushakov, Executive VP for Nuclear Operations, who will review our near-term research and development opportunities. Andrei?