Thomas Jam Pedersen — Copenhagen Atomics

Thomas, welcome to The Nuclear Show. I'm so excited to talk to you from Copenhagen atomics. My first question to you is, you know, you have bet your life and your career on building, you know, new Copenhagen atomics. Walk us through that moment of when you first decided that you wanted to do this. What is it that really tipped you across the line to, you know, go on this journey?

Yeah, thank you. First of all, thank you for having me. And yeah, it was not a one moment. So it was actually it took me more than two years because I've started other technology companies before other startup companies. And I was very interested in energy and I had already started another small company with energy storage before this. And I was also looking at fusion whether I wanted to invest my money and my time in into fusion. But then this form energy came along and I was that's why I said it took roughly two years because I was I was not sure that it actually would work in the beginning. And also in the beginning, I hadn't met the co-founders. So we have four people who started the company. And if I hadn't met the other people, the other three, I probably wouldn't have started the company. So that sort of in some weird way, the things came together over a couple of years. And so the reason why it took so long is was because, you know, 10, 15 years ago, nuclear energy was not exactly popular in society. And also, it was very slow, very expensive, you know, any nuclear power plant cost billions of dollars. And, you know, it's not exactly something you start in a startup company in a garage. But after we sort of figure out how it works, so all the technical details, we realized that this is a this is a giant opportunity. And, and of course, we already knew before then that energy is super important for the society. We cannot have prosperity without energy. And if we look at the whole history of mankind in more than 100,000 years, it was only when we figured out how to collect energy from fossil fuels that we really changed our society. I mean, it was more or less same for 100,000 years. And then in the last 200 years, roughly, everything has completely changed because we got access to burn fossil fuels. And they have done a magnificent job for creating a prosperous society. And also, back then we were less than a billion people on the planet, I think even less than half a billion. And now we are what 8 billion. So energy is super important. And of course, it's part of every product we ever use in our whole lives. So we thought if we can make energy at lower cost, that would be awesome. And, and that's what it took us two years to make sure that that was possible from math and physics. So yeah, and then since then, we've all been on fire because, you know, this is a giant opportunity to be part of a team of smart people that builds the next generation of energy for the whole world. That's super exciting.

Yeah, I mean, it's not just 8 billion people we have in the world. If we look, you know, into the next century, we're talking about 20 billion humanoids and robots and AI agents all requiring energy. It's a lot of energy we need. And nuclear just is really right in that place. You know, maybe this could be the holy grail of really unlocking the next prosperous prosperity that we can see in the world. And so fast forward with Copenhagen atomics, you know, you've got potential clients interested early interest, you have an amazing team, I'm a huge fan of Copenhagen atomics, I just love what you're doing. And you have all these amazing development progress going on tests going on. There's a lot of great information about this online on your website, on Twitter, on other social media platforms. Just give us a quick snapshot of where things are today with Copenhagen atomics.

Yeah, so quick snapshot, we've just raised some additional money, roughly 100 million. And we are moving into the building the first test reactor that we're going to test in 2028 in Switzerland, and also building up sort of the, you could say the supply chain for fuel, fuel production. We have been doing that for some years, but but the next two years, we will get up and actually have our own fuel production of form and uranium fuel salts, but also also lithium seven, which is also required for the fuel. And we started buying heavy water. So those are all the sort of special things that are needed for these reactors to run. And, and that's the big deal right now to get all of that up and running. And normally for nuclear companies, they don't have the supply chain for the fuel supply, they build, you know, the reactor or something and then other companies supply the fuel, but we are virtually integrated. So we we will have all of it, we build the reactor, we also built the fuel, because the fuel production is sort of key to making these reactors work.

Amazing. So a quick snapshot on investors who are investing in the company. What is you know, what are they looking for? What are they interested in? And how are they keeping an eye on your the progress that you're making at Copenhagen atomics?

Yeah, so first of all, the way they keep an eye on it, some of them visit us regularly and, and we send out quarterly updates to keep investors informed. But also, like you said, in general, we we put out quite a lot of news and social media and YouTube and podcasts and everything. So, so that's that. I think it's a fairly easy to follow what we're doing. But then what type of investors it is. So until now, it has mostly been high net worth individuals and family officers that have invested in this and a few venture funds. And we have had a lot of luck with people who, like ourselves, believe that this is the future of energy supply for the entire planet. So those types of people who can see that this is not just a quick, you know, invest money for two or three years, and then you get some sort of return on investment, but this is a investing in the future of mankind. Those are the type of investors we have on board. And, and it's, it's, that's another great thing. I mean, the employees we have are really great. But I think many of the investors we have also great to work with. So I feel amazing that we went that the team around the company is very, very supportive.

Well, that's fantastic. Well, let's dive in. And let's talk about the energy problem. Why is it the likes of Google and Oracle and these sort of massive hyperscalers, Amazon, they're starting to look into nuclear energy, they want to have nuclear reactors, like yours to, you know, run their data centers, there's a lot of data being processed for artificial intelligence tool, a lot of companies reporting 40% of you know, cutting down, you know, human based productivity to do a lot of AI based work. What is it about these nuclear as a standalone solution for these type of problems that nuclear can solve?

Yeah, so I think you have to forget everything you heard in, in the traditional media about energy, because it's not until you realize that everything you was told in the past is completely wrong, that you start to look at the energy problem with the right type of eyes. So if you look at, like I said, the last 200 years where humans have received a lot of energy, most of that is from fossil fuels. In the for the whole of my life, we've gotten 80% of all the energy from fossil fuels, and I expect that will continue into the future. But we have to admit that if we want to become a species that uses 10 times or 100 times more energy than what we use today, fossil fuels are probably not going to make it, forget it about wind and solar, it's not going to provide that amount of energy and, and hydropower has been very useful for us humans. But we've more or less used up all the hydropower that we can, we can use. So if we really want to scale up energy, nuclear is the only option. And that's also why I looked at fusion early on, because maybe fusion is a loose solution. And I still think I mean, it works on the sun. And we've also made hydrogen bombs here on this planet. So I think maybe someday in the future, we can make it work. But it's very clear that it's not anytime soon from the companies who are trying to do fusion. Of course, they tell you otherwise, but but if you really look at and you don't listen to what they say, listen to what they do. So yeah, but but so we looked at can we scale your uranium supply by a factor of 10 or 100. And maybe maybe we could scale uranium supply by a factor of 10. But 100 seems unlikely. But thorium, the fuel that we use in Copenhagen Atomics, that one you can scale like crazy. I mean, we're not going to run out of it, even if we scale the total amount of energy consumption on this planet by a factor of 100. And it's super cheap. It's in all countries of the world. And then of course, we were wondering, okay, maybe that's great that there's another material called form and you can use that but we don't quite have the reactors that the old classical nuclear reactors cannot really run on form, or at least the way it works. It's not economically viable compared to uranium. So that was not a good solution. But fortunately, there was a guy called Alvin Weinberg many, many years ago, he he had his prime time in the 50s and 60s. He already discovered back then that you can use something called the molten salt reactor that he helped invent. And, and if you use that type of reactor, then thorium becomes really valuable. And you can burn thorium in an economically viable way. And when we start looking at that, you know, in the beginning, we were a little bit unsure, is it really true that it works? But it it's definitely true. I mean, and, and so we need to build these reactors and this fuels production that is different from the classical nuclear reactors. But once we do that, the price can come down and we can mass manufacture it. And you know, we can easily make 10 times or maybe 20 or 30 times more energy than what we are consuming today and still at a lower cost than all the energy sources we've been used using so far. And this is what is exciting. And that's what we are bringing to the table. And then and then you might ask, okay, so if if komig atomics or some other company are successful with thorium molten salt reactors, are fusion ever going to be a thing? I don't know. I mean, I definitely think I mean, it'll take many, many years before we out compete all the other nuclear or sorry, all the other energy forms. And they will, you know, even in 2050, or 2075, or whatever, there will still be some countries who do not use nuclear energy. But of course, the all the big countries like USA, India, China, they already use nuclear energy, and they're all very interested in this technology. And and I think they are going to use it in very large scale in the next five or 10 years. And then after on the backside of that, of course, more and more countries will do the same. But it will take a couple of decades before many countries are using thorium energy. But hey, I think when we get to the year 2100, so 75 years from now, I think more than half of all energy in the whole world is going to come from the worm.

Yeah, yeah, amazing. Are you with me, Thomas?

Sorry. Maybe there was a break in the video.

Okay, no, fantastic. We can solve that out. You're, you're, you're so right. I mean, you know, the last three months, I've personally witnessed how much this prospect of, you know, this new way of doing nuclear energy from the likes of, you know, Copenhagen atomics has become such a reality. Even Trump has come out, and he has all these new executive orders to fast track the development of all these new reactors. He flew a new reactor from valor atomics into on his military plane for for using for military, you know, operations on military sites. It's, it's, it's here. And, you know, investments are already going through for reactors, all these big companies like Oracle's already making decisions, they know that nuclear is the way to go to for baseload energy for being independent for for, you know, customizing the energy needs that they have, we already know that energy prices just keep going up and up and up, they're becoming less and less affordable, you know, and and, you know, it's looking like in the 2030s, we're gonna have more of a shortfall really, and, and, and there's, there is going to be this new reality of look at these guys, Copenhagen atomics, and the incredible work that they're doing and the reactors that they have and how they operate it, I'm very, I'm very excited. I'm very excited for the future, because I think the future vision, and you talk about 2100, I think the future vision, for me is, you know, we want energy to and everything to be abundant, accessible and affordable for everybody. I think that's where it becomes exciting that we can go 10x 20x with everything. And so, you know, for investors and customers watching this show, you know, give us a little bit about the 2030s. What does that look like for Copenhagen atomics? I know you have a criticality coming, you know, in terms of you know, the energy that you can supply, what does that look like for revenue for your business, the growth for your business? Give us a snapshot of that.

Yes, of course. You're absolutely correct. So right now we're working on getting the first demonstration reactor or test reactor up and running in 2028. But we also working with potential customers to start submitting the licenses because it takes many years under the current regime to get a license to operate a nuclear reactor in any country takes many years. So we need to start now submitting these licenses with the authorities in several different countries. So we're doing that with the commercial customers. I mean, they're not customers yet because they haven't paid, but they are potential customers. And so we're doing that we're submitting these different applications and working on that in several different countries. And I expect that one of these first customers will get the license to operate a nuclear reactor in 2030 or 2031. And then we need to be ready to supply the reactor and the fuel by then. But it but it's not actually the it's not the technical challenges that are going to be the the shortest path or difficult path. It is the the these licenses and approvals. And and we are very excited that both US and India and also China are trying to make the time it takes to apply for a license shorter. And here in Europe, they're not yet making it shorter, but they they have actually started talking about it. So hopefully also in a in a couple years, they will try to make the approval process shorter. Because in the past, if you look at all the reactors that have been built in the past, it is taken 10 years or more to you know, from from the time you decide that you want to build a nuclear power plant at a certain location, then you need to get the site approved and you need to get environmental studies and you need to raise the financing to start building the site, then you can buy the piece of land and then you can start submitting the the real license, the building permit and the operational license on and that whole process and then eventually building it and getting it up and running. That whole process usually takes 10 years or more. In Europe, unfortunately, it lately as it has taken more than 10 years, significantly more than 10 years. But but I think in most countries, it's still possible to do it in 10 years. But that's what, for example, USA is trying to shorten down to hopefully five years or less. And and I think it's doable. And I think this is what we will see in the early 2030s that more and more countries will be able to do it in five years. I think sort of in the long term, if we look beyond 2040, I think we will have what is called a type license, which means a little bit similar to airplanes, that as soon as one type of airplanes have been licensed, then you can use that airplane in many countries or almost all countries of the world. And I think we will have something similar with nuclear reactors eventually, that they will be type license. But I also think it's too early. It will be sometime in the 2040s. But then once once that regime starts to kick in, then we can install them much, much faster, like in 12 months.

Yes. Yeah. Well, I think that's the holy grail of Copenhagen atomics. You want to get to that point where you're pumping these out every day. I mean, we don't one of my, you know, favorite manufacturing product is the the Raptor engine of the spaceship rocket. And they're producing one one a day. It's that, you know, it's amazing what they've got to that criticality. So I think that's the amazing thing about the difference between Copenhagen atomics and the old reactors is that you can get to 2040. And that's, that's just around the corner. That's very around the corner. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you know, we'll be pumping these out. And it's, it's, you know, it's, it's, it's the next era of human, human civilization. So let's get into your reactor. I want to learn your reactor because it's exciting. It looks amazing. The container, the design of it, the pictures are amazing. The tests you're doing are very exciting to, to, to track and see the progress. Paint a picture of your reactor. It's container size, thorium, molten salt. Talk to us about waste burning, how much energy it produces, what makes it fundamentally different from every other advanced reactor on the drawing board today that we're seeing.

Yeah, that was a complex question with all the technical details, but I'll try my best. So, uh, the first thing you have to recognize is that the majority of nuclear reactors that we humans have ever built are made out of fuel rods. So essentially long cylinders inside and reactor core that is also a similar cylinder. So it's cylinders and cylinders and, uh, and we sort of, um, we realized that we cannot get the performance we want with that old model of cylinders and cylinders. And the reason why they started like that is just because it was easy to calculate in the fifties and sixties, when they didn't have computers, it was easy to calculate on a piece of paper. And then also it's easier to manufacture. So, so that's why we started there. And I think, you know, that's a reasonable, uh, good idea to start in like with that solution, but it turns out that if you want a high performance nuclear reactor, it's it's a bad idea to have cylinders and cylinders. And this is why we invented the onion core, which is all of a, an onion with many layers, uh, on top of each other. Um, so that's one thing. And by doing that, we were able and okay, I showed up. Another thing is that most of these reactors that other companies are building, they run at high pressure. So very high pressure inside the reactor. And that makes everything super expensive. If you look at other industries where you need to run at high pressure, everything gets expensive because suddenly you need licensed components. And especially if it's high pressure and radioactive, then it's, you need super duper, lots of tests and licenses and certifications on the steel and whatnot. Uh, but with molten salt reactors, you don't need to run at pressure. And also it doesn't need to be very big whereas classical reactors are always very large. They're typically 10 meters tall and so on. But with our reactor, the, these onion core that I talked about before, it has, it's like a giant ball, uh, and it's a, has a two and a half meters in diameter. So it fits inside a regular shipping container. And then of course you need to put some other things in there as well, heat exchangers and pumps and, and some electronics and measurements and so on. But it all fits nicely inside a 40 foot shipping container, which is easy to transport on the road. And it's also easy. It's an easy, nice, um, size for mass manufacturing. Uh, so of course that's why we, we chose that because it, it, it lends itself to mass manufacturing, just like, for example, cars in a car factory. So that's, that's the reason why we chose that size. And it's actually the onion core. When you have that size between, well, it depends a little bit on the configuration, but between two meters up to two and a half meters, that's the most optimal size seen from physics. So, so if you try to make it bigger, uh, you might be able to get more energy out, but it's less efficient. So it's actually better to build two next to each other, instead of making it bigger. And the analogy to that is also people say, ah, but why don't you just build it like super big 20 meters in diameter, because they would have super bad efficiency at that size. And, and the analog is if you look at computer chips, I mean, when we need a giant computer, we don't build a computer chip that is a 20 by 20 meters. We still built many, many like millions of small chips, and then we put them in a data center and put lots of them next to each other. And this also gives redundancy because if, if one of the computers boot or, you know, uh, goes bad, you can still run, run the data center. It's the same with these reactors that they are most efficient at that size of two and a half meters roughly. And, and then you can just put many of them next to each other. So that's also what we plan to do for nuclear power plants. We, we plan to put 10 or 20 or 100 units next to each other, uh, depending on the size of the power plant. And this also enables you to sort of slowly build up the output of your power plant. So you don't need to build the whole thing from day one. You can, you can start with less financial costs and get it up and running. And then once you've shown that it's running, then you can always extend it and, and put more and more units.

Amazing. You have already built multiple full-scale prototypes and hit some impressive testing milestones, including two years of continuous molten salt pump operation. Walk us through the development progress. Are you happy with the design you have for the reactor? You're very confident that this is it and you're ready and you, you want to do the 2028 criticality and really push for that mass manufacturing, maybe do the first customer or client and then go from there. Is, is that the plan? Is that you, is that where you are at?

Yes. So the, the current, uh, R&D center we have here in Copenhagen, uh, we have enough space to test five full-scale reactors next to each other. We're not allowed to turn on the chain reaction here in Copenhagen, but we can do a lot of other testing with where we just heat up the salt with the electricity and pump it around and, and do all the testing that is required here. And then eventually we will take one of them and bring it to Switzerland and, and turn it on there. Once we have the license to, to start the chain reaction there, but they are sort of super easy. I mean, we can just put them on a truck here and drive them over to Switzerland and then we can run the test there and drive them back again and so on. So it's, it's much, much easier than this traditional nuclear reactors that takes five years to build. And you have, in some of those, you have 2000 workers, uh, you know, making steel and concrete, uh, every day for five years. I mean, this is just what we're building is a, is a completely different story. We order components from suppliers locally, or even sometimes far away. And then all the components arrive here and then we assemble the reactant that takes like half a year. We've done that, like you said, a couple of times. We have two units running now and we're building the third one now. And of course there are minor changes from one to the next where we're learning some things could be better if they're changed. But in general, they are all based on the same design with the onion core and the, and the same pumps and so on. Um, and, and those are already running here. We are testing every day. And as we get more and more units, we will be able to test more and more. And I think it's amazing because if you look at, at some of the other nuclear companies around the world, even sort of very large nuclear companies, none of them have a possibility of putting five reactors at their R&D center just for, for testing. So that, that also tells you that these reactors are much more small and nimble and easy to build than the traditional reactors. And even the other advanced reactor company, even some of the ones in the US that got a lot of funding, even they do not have, uh, two reactors up and running already. And, and possibility of building five units at their test facility. So, so this is great. And the next thing with this facility we have here, it's a, it's a quite large factory we are, we're working at here at this facility. We can also build the first 10 commercial reactors, and we can also build the fuel for the first 10 or 20 or 50 reactors. So, so the, the production facility here is already big enough to, to sort of get off the ground. It's not big enough to make a, a gigafactory and sort of make one reactor every day, but at least we can get off the ground and make the first 10 or 20 nuclear reactors, commercial nuclear reactors and all the fuel needed for those. And then once we've done that and shown that this, that it works, then of course we will build a gigafactory somewhere.

That's what exciting about Copenhagen atomics is that when you're talking with, you know, the hyperscalers, the institutional investors, the big giants that want to use, um, want to work with a partner, you know, you've already well ahead of all of these companies, uh, that you just mentioned. And you, you know, you, you've, you're already set up and you can, you can do the first 10 and that's, you know, that's pretty, that's pretty massive and that's incredible. I'm curious, um, talk to me about your kind of designs and thinking around, uh, the safety features of, of, of your reactor, whether it's, you know, shutdowns or maintenance or the things that you work on to kind of keep it, keep it, you know, um, uh, generating energy and also your, your, your spent fuel. And how do you manage that if you, if you, if you can just talk through those.

Yes. So, uh, I want to maybe start with the spent fuel because that's also one of the things that got me very excited in the beginning, because we realized that we can, we can use the fuel from light water reactors, all the other reactors in the world today. Uh, they, they, they run the fuel for some amount of time and they don't use all the energy in the fuel. And they typically use a few percent of the energy in the fuel, and then they're not able to use it anymore. And then they, they put it out and say it's spent fuel. And, uh, and of course there's a misunderstanding in the entire world that people think it's waste and it's dangerous. Uh, so first of all, yeah, it is radioactive, so you should not eat it or anything, but it has never killed anyone. So we have, we have 400, uh, civil nuclear reactors in the world and another more than 500 military reactors. And we also have research reactors. So we have thousands of reactors in the world and they all produce this spent nuclear fuel and it has never killed anyone. So, I mean, it, it is, of course you shouldn't eat it. I agree, but, but it's not dangerous. And, and, uh, and then some countries want to put it deep underground, like deep geological storage is super expensive, but that's a, that's a bad idea. And most nuclear scientists know that already because they know that we can, we can get the rest of the energy out of it. We don't have to throw it away. We already spent a huge amount of resources digging out of the ground and doing, uh, uranium enrichment and so on. So, so why throw it away? Uh, and actually if we were to use those, that spent fuel from traditional reactors in our reactor, then we can get 10 times more energy out of the fuel, uh, than what was generated when it was used the first time around. So, so it basically means if you look at all the nuclear energy in the entire world today, we still have that spent fuel sitting around so we could just decide, I mean, it's not, it, it, we've known for many decades that it's physically possible from, you know, from engineering and so on. So it's just because the rules are a little bit against it. So we, as a society could just decide, okay, now we make it okay to use the spent fuel and then boom, then we would have 10 times more energy in the whole world, 10 times more nuclear energy. And I think that's super, that excites me. And it did from when I learned about it the first time. And right now the international rules about how you can reuse spent fuel is, is not good. So we need to change those rules, but, uh, I hope that will happen. I know that there's many other people working on this, uh, besides us. So I do expect it to happen, but it is a little bit difficult because one of the things is that spent fuel has plutonium inside. And of course, one of the reasons is we are not allowed to use that plutonium for bombs or military purposes. So that's one of the things that we have to get the rules made in a way where we can make sure that it's not being diverted for military purposes, but all of it is being used for energy production. And eventually in our reactor, at least, uh, the plutonium disappears. So one, once we generate energy, the plutonium completely disappears and it also helps convert form into uranium that generates energy. So in the end, you end up with a much better fuel than you had when you, when you start, or if you start on spent fuel or start on, um, the remains from spent nuclear fuel, then you will, you will basically convert all of that material into a better fuel. And in our type of reactors, it just generates more and more fuel out of thorium because our reactors is what is called a breeder reactor that can generate more fuel than it consumes. So actually you end up in a, in a situation where you just generate more and more and more fuel over the years. Of course, it's, it's not fast. It takes decades to generate more fuel, but, but at least you don't, you don't waste all the fuel. You actually end up more than where you started.

Yeah, amazing. Just quickly on the safety features in terms of shutdowns and operations, just what's the concept and how are you going to do that?

Yeah. So it's actually super simple. So, um, for traditional nuclear reactors, you have something called, uh, shutdown rods or, um, uh, different types of, uh, rods that you insert into the reactor to make the chain reaction stop. And, uh, maybe in the movie about Chernobyl, you've seen some of these and how they had an issue in the way they were designed. But for a molten salt reactors like ours, it's completely different because as soon as you remove the fuel salt from that onion core chain reaction stop immediately. And it's not like it, all of it has to be removed as soon as you just remove a few liters of fuel, then the chain reaction stops and we do that. So the way our reactor works is that we pump salt and heavy water up into the core. So all the time when the pumps are running, they pump salt into the core, but as soon as you stop the pumps, the chain reaction stops immediately. And then of course, when you stop the pumps, everything is draining down into a drain tank. Uh, and some other designs of molds or reactors, they use what is called a freeze block. And the first reactor that was built in the 1960s also uses freeze block, but we don't need that because of the way we have to sign our reactor. And we're not the only ones. There's actually other companies doing the same, but we just, as long as the pumps are running, salt and water is pumped into the core. And then when you cut the electricity to the pumps, then automatically everything drains into drain tanks and the reaction stops. And it's in a safe state, even if there was like a bombs falling or, or an earthquake or whatever might happen. Uh, so that's also why in the control room, we just have a stop button and the person in this control room can just press the stop button and then it cuts the power to the pumps and everything drains. Or if there is a, an explosion or something and the electricity supply, uh, stops, then also it will put itself into a safe state. So even if the humans are not there, it will still stop and get into a safe state because actually the, we never expect that any humans will hit the stop button. We expect that the, the control system would be able to shut down, uh, you know, many milliseconds before the human can even start moving their hand. So, uh, so it will likely never be possible for a human to hit the stop button before the reactor has already stopped itself.

Um, yeah, it's like what I, what I'm excited about this is that we are getting into an age of this new nuclear age where it's almost like, you know, the planes, the planes are more, you're more safer to be in a plane than being in a car, you know, it's that we're getting to that stage, which is what's very, very exciting about this. So thank you very much for taking me through the reactor. Wow. Oh, I'm, I'm, I'm pumped. I'm so excited. So I want to move on. I want to talk about your business model. I want to talk about your customers and how they would be interacting with you in the, in the future. Uh, the first thing that kind of really stood to me is, uh, this, uh, concept of nuclear as a service. I think I'm going to get that printed on a t-shirt and, and, and wear that proudly because I love that concept. Um, so your business model, as I understand it and you will, you know, please break it down for us. I understand that it is a $50 million price tag upfront for the reactor plus fuel. Then there's a 2 million a year for Copenhagen atomics to handle operations, maintenance and vessel swaps. What exactly does the customer take care of and just give us a quick, um, intro into your, your business model for your customers?

Yes. So over the years we have, uh, played around with a little bit with the different business models and, uh, the, the nuclear as a service is maybe a little bit, uh, different than this, what we're talking about there with the reactor. So, but, but this is something where the communication team is still working on it. Um, but in, in, um, in sort of a short notice, uh, we have put the price of our reactors and the fuel on our website, and I think very few other nuclear companies have the price of their reactors on the website. And the reason we do that is because to show the world that we're willing to sign contracts on prices that are ridiculously lower than, than what traditional nuclear costs. I mean, here in Europe, a traditional nuclear power plant can easily cost you like a 50 billion us dollars. And then, you know, we put out this price of 50 million per reactor unit, of course, our reactors are smaller than the traditional classical nuclear reactors. And in terms of how much energy they put out, uh, but it's, uh, it's, it's still significantly lower price. And, uh, uh, and then each of these units. So that tells you that instead of paying 50 billion to get started, now you can pay 50 million to get started and have your first reactor. And then always later on, you can add more units to that site. And every time you want to add one more unit to the site, you just pay another 50 million to us two years after you pay the 50 million, we deliver a reactor with fuel and everything. And then you pay $2 million per year to keep it running. And for those $2 million, we make sure that the fuel and the reactor vessel and everything is up to date, uh, because in some of the, you need to do a little bit of a refueling with thorium every 10 years. You also need to swap some of the reactor components every roughly every five years, but we take care of that. That's included in the price, but what the, uh, the power plant operator then needs to pay for is of course the financial costs. And, uh, that's of course very expensive. So they ha and they have to pay for the buildings and the site, they have to buy the land where the reactors are running. And then they also need to, uh, connect to the grid and buy steam turbines and so on. And actually all of these things, the building, the steam turbine connection to the grid and so on is more expensive than the reactor unit that they buy from us. Um, so in the end, they still have to, uh, put the majority of the funding for building the power plant and the building and so on, and get the license from the authorities, uh, what they pay towards us is a minor part of it, but that's, that's also where we are quite different because for traditional reactors, uh, this is the cost of the reactor and the fuel is very significant. Anyways, um, so this is a new model of course, where, where you don't have to, um, pay a billion dollars to get started. You can, you can build the power plant for less than a billion dollars and get it up and running, and then you can add more and more, uh, reactors over the years to increase your capacity. Uh, but we always suggest to people that they, when they apply for a license, the site license, but also the license for, to operate reactors that they ask the government, uh, you know, to get at least one gigawatt of, uh, capacity for that site, because what we see around the world is that there's a limited number of nuclear sites where you can have, uh, where you can place a nuclear react and where you can get the licenses, but also where you can get enough cooling water and so on. So, uh, you know, eventually the limitation in the world will not be, uh, reactors from Copenhagen Atomics or thorium, the limitation will be, where can we be allowed to put these reactors? And hopefully over the years, the, the rules around that will also be relaxed. But as it is for now, it's, it's quite difficult in Europe and, uh, India, for example, to find sites where you can put a nuclear reactor in the U S U S is a big country and there's lots of empty space, uh, and, um, and only 300 million people, so they can still find places where they can put reactors. Uh, but it eventually also in the U S it will be become more and more difficult to find good locations near the coast or near a big river where they can put nuclear reactors. So, so that's actually as an investor, that's how you make a lot of money. You, uh, you build these sites and get the site license because it's a limited resource. And, um, and I think now is the time to start investing in that because these sites will be immensely valuable, uh, over the years when you start to add more and more energy generation, uh, to those locations.

Um, now that's amazing. Uh, so from, uh, carrying on from an investor point of view, why is this business model so attractive for them? Is it, you know, what are you showing, uh, uh, to them when you, when you meet with investors, is it the, obviously you're making money with the, the upfront, um, um, uh, the reactor, I'm sure there's a profit margin there. There's predictable revenue you're getting. You can show this 2 million revenue and then you can work out the contract that you have with these customers. Um, is it a faster cashflow? Is it the scalability? What is it that you're showing to them that they're going, wow, this is actually something different and I want to be part of it.

Yeah, so of course it depends on who the, uh, the investor is who gets excited by what, but I would say the majority of investors we have until today, uh, they can see that, you know, the whole world is running on top of energy. And if somebody is suddenly invented a way to make energy at less than half price of what everybody else is making energy at today, or for our whole lifetime, uh, that is a big, that is a big deal. And they can also see that we could easily become a trillion dollar energy company. I mean, that's as soon as we start mass manufacturing, these reactors, we will quite quickly get to a situation where we are a trillion dollar company. And of course that is like a thousand, uh, times higher valuation than what we have today, roughly. So, so that means that you can get a hundred or sorry, you can get a thousand X return on your investment. And there's not a lot of places where you can do that. I mean, if you're an investor and you're looking for great things to invest in, of course you can buy houses. And, and then you look at, okay, over 10 or 20 years, how much return on investment do I get on those houses? And what are the risks? What are the risks that I end up losing my money and, you know, investors, lots of investors, uh, invest in, in real estate. Um, and the return on investment is okay, but it's not great. And then of course you can, you can invest in technology companies. That's always where you get the biggest return on investment. And, and now they look at the prices of, uh, AI companies and say, we're not going to get, you know, if we're really, really, really lucky, we could get a 10 X in 20 years, uh, on technology companies, um, with chip companies or AI, but they're not going to get a thousand X return, but this is what they, they can do with us. And then, and then of course they start looking at the risk. What is the risk, uh, in investing in coping atomics and how long do I want to stay invested? Maybe they don't want to stay invested for two decades, like they do in real estate. Maybe they only want to stay invested for five years. And then they look at, okay, what is my return over five years, but it's still like 10 X, maybe in five years, which is still amazing. I mean, that's not easy to get elsewhere. Um, so, so that's why investors invest in us and it's mostly the investors who understand the risk because there are some investors who, who they are not able to understand that sort of the technical challenges or the it's not only technical challenges. It's also challenges with getting all these licenses. But of course, as we've seen in the last 10 years, the world is definitely opening up to more nuclear now. And I think it'll be even more in the next five years. I think we will see a lot of progress in terms of getting these licenses in a shorter period of time in the next five years, both because it now we can use AI to generate all these licensing documents, but also because the government realized that this is they need this in order to scale, uh, their production, their AI, uh, their transition to, uh, electrical vehicles and all the other things we need in society today. So, um, so I think the, the risk is removing itself. I mean, we don't even need to do anything. It's, it's just a, uh, disappearing in front of our eyes over the next five years. And the smart investors are also realizing that, and that's why they're coming here to invest in us.

What is exciting about Copenhagen atomics is that you guys talk about nuclear energy in a very different way than a lot of these other, uh, uh, startups talk about nuclear, how the media covers nuclear. Um, just the way you, you're doing nuclear energy. It's so refreshing and so different and so exciting that, you know, and, and, you know, one of the things that I talk a lot about is, uh, who's going to make major mistakes. Who's gonna choose the wrong reactor. Who's gonna, you know, ride the high and then boom, it falls off. You know, we've seen that with all these EV companies that start to compete with Tesla and they all come and go. And so when I talk to you and, and, and learn about Copenhagen atomics, I'm like, these guys do it very differently. This is something different about this, that you just cannot look, you know, uh, away. You, you have to really, really think about it. And so thank you to, for, uh, taking me through your business model. It's, it's, you know, it's, it's so exciting and so refreshing and, and so well put together that, you know, it's, it's, um, so convincing to, to, uh, to, to get on board. I want to move on to, uh, your supply chain, uh, do you go to a gigafactory scale from your existing factory that you have? Uh, the first thing I want to talk to you about is, you know, uh, the, the major, uh, thorium supply, um, partnership. You've just signed with rare earth Norway. Congrats on that, by the way, everyone's fighting for rare earths. Trump wants Greenland. And, uh, I don't know how you feel about that, but, but, um, congrats on that. So let's take me through the building blocks of, you know, your supply chain and the materials you need and your vision to how that drives you to expanding into a, into a true gigafactory scale of production.

Yes. Yeah. So that you're, you're right. We, of course, we need thorium. Uh, we also need, uh, a kickstarter fuel and that kickstarter fuel can either be enriched uranium or what is called transuranics that comes from spent fuel. And we also need heavy water and we also need lithium seven. Uh, and all of those things are sometimes available. I mean, today, already today we can buy uranium and, and thorium on the market. Uh, it's clearly, if we want to make a thousands of reactors every year, then there's not enough thorium in the current market. Then we would need to, um, start generating thorium, but actually the, the mining operations around the world that, that mine for other materials, copper and iron and rare earth, like you said, uh, they already get a lot of thorium out of the ground. And they, it's not being used today. So they, they don't separate it. They just take it and put it back in the ground as mining tails. Uh, so, but it's still there. We know where it is exactly where it is. And, and just all the mining operations in the world today, they generate enough thorium every day to power the entire world with all the electricity we would need. So we don't have to start any new mines to look for thorium. We, we would just need to ask the existing mining companies to start separating it. But again, some of the rules around that are problematic. For example, you are in Australia right now in Australia, there's a huge amount of thorium being mined every day, but the government is don't want to make the rules so that the mining companies can separate it at low risk. The mining companies have to take a huge risk in terms of economic risk to start separating it. Uh, so right now, even though, uh, Australia is one of the biggest, uh, countries mining for thorium, we don't get any thorium from Australia. We, we have to buy it elsewhere. Right now, we buy most of our thorium in France, but I mean, they're, they're like, there are many other suppliers. Like you said, in Norway, they're starting a new mine for rare earth where they will also have a thorium as a byproduct. And we have agreed to, uh, to take that, but we've actually also made agreements with other mining companies, both in, in Africa and, uh, Asia. So, um, I, I think it will not be a problem to get the thorium, but there are some rules that hopefully will change over the years. Other, otherwise it could be difficult to get it out of Australia. So I really hope that that, that will change. And I have a, I'm positive. I, I I've spoken to some of the authorities and in Australia, and they are aware of the problem, but they're not moving very fast, but they are doing something to, to make the changes. So I'm very positive that it will change over the next five years or so. Um, the heavy water is actually also sort of a problem. Because a heavy water is mainly been used for, uh, heavy water reactors, which is the type they have in Canada. They're called CANDU reactors and the type they have in India called a pressurized heavy water reactors. And, and there's a few other countries, uh, South Korea and Romania and so on that also have these and, uh, and those countries have been making heavy water in the past, but they stopped making it or, uh, India is the only one that are making heavy water at last scale right now. And the, and the, it's a little bit difficult to export heavy water from India. So we are, we are working on that. Um, but we will need very large quantities of heavy water. So we hope that other industrial, um, companies are going to set up heavy water plants. It is quite expensive right now in the market because there's more demand than there is supply right now. Uh, so I think people who want to start a heavy water factory, they can make a lot of money at least here in the beginning. And hopefully they will use our reactors to get the price of energy down so they can continue to be competitive in the future also when making a heavy water, when the, when hopefully the price falls a little bit. And I should say now it sounds like it's super expensive. It's a, it's not that expensive compared to other materials in the nuclear industry. Uh, so heavy water costs around $500 per kilogram. Um, and if you look at enriched uranium, it costs 10 times as much. It costs 4,000, $5,000 per kilogram. And some of these companies that make reactors using HALEU fuel, it costs a $20,000 per kilogram. Um, so yeah, so that's much more expensive. And then if you start looking at fusion, the prices just get crazy. So, uh, for example, tritium is $30 million per kilogram, and that's what all the fusion reactors need. And of course there's not enough tritium on the planet for, for all these planned fusion reactors. Uh, but actually in, in heavy water reactors, you can generate fusion or sorry, you can generate tritium. So we, as a company, we can decide to make a little bit more electricity or we can make a little bit less electricity and then make a little bit more tritium and then sell tritium. So, so of course we also looking at that market for tritium is, is that going to take off because then we, we could make a little bit more tritium and a little bit less electricity. Uh, but this is one of the things that our reactor can do. It can generate tritium for for fusion. Um, and then, and then you asked about sort of our supply chain. So, uh, the most important things that we need are the lithium seven and lithium is not very expensive. The lithium costs like a hundred dollars per kilogram or sometimes even less. Uh, but we need to enrich lithium to lithium seven and we do that in house. So we have our own process to do that. And this means that we can generate lithium seven at low cost than other potential competitors. And this is another important thing that, that we have that integrated into our own supply chain. And then of course, hopefully someday we can, uh, we can get access to all the spent fuel in the whole world, uh, from the old reactors. And then we can generate huge amount of energy because if we have enough heavy water and we have enough lithium seven, uh, and, and then we get access to the spent fuel, then we can generate huge amount of energy. I mean, it's like we can, we can double the total amount of energy in the world in a short amount of time.

It's incredible talking to you and listening to you right now is, you know, there is no other nuclear company that I've come across that they've got all of their ducks in a row. You've got everything, you know, in place. Yes, you have challenges and yes, there's pricing and then, you know, we all live in the real world. We have challenges. Even Elon Musk has challenges with Tesla and space ship space X and you know, everything that everyone else is doing. But you know, you have well thought through and made progress, not just your reactor, not just your, your, your, you know, your, your production, your supply chain, your business model. It's, it's amazing. It's such a well rounded, you know, a put together business.

And we spent many years, many years on this, on planning this and doing this. And, and I must say some of the, some of the things that are being talked about on in the media sometimes, and from some of our competitors is, uh, it's a little bit crazy. Um, I mentioned the cost of HALEU just before, I mentioned the cost of HALEU just before. And, uh, there's a number of companies out there that wants to run their reactors on HALEU. And they, they don't really, then they don't tell the, the market, what the real cost of HALEU is. I mean, so I mentioned $20,000 per kilogram, but that's just the raw cost of the uranium. They enrich uranium and, and then there's, ah, but we're just gonna optimize the supply chain, but this is physics. I mean, it, we have tried to optimize that for five decades or more. It's not suddenly getting much cheaper and potentially it's even getting more expensive because when there's more, uh, demand for uranium, then it might go up in price and not down in price. So I mean, that their cost of just buying the raw material from their supplier is more expensive than when we sell our energy. And then, and then they say, oh, but we just magically gonna, you know, remove that cost. It's not gonna happen. And, and that's also, it's a little bit the same with fusion. Sometimes fusion, they say, oh, we run on seawater. That's not true. I mean, they, most fusion reactors run on deuterium and tritium. And if you look up the cost of those, they, I mean, we talked about heavy water, that's deuterium. So that's $500 per kilogram. And the tritium is $30 million per kilogram. So that's what you're burning to generate energy. It's, it's, uh, and there's, I mean, of course, the tritium price could come down over the years to maybe 10 million per kilogram, but I still, it's still, they're very significant. Um, so, uh, yeah. So you have to think about, uh, how does, how does this whole thing work? And it seems that most news articles doesn't really explain that well. They, they talk on a very superficial level and they just said, oh, the president will, uh, you know, make a speech and then magically the prices will come down by a factor of 1000. Nah, that's not how the world works.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, what, this leads me to your 2028 criticality. You know, they, we talked about all different aspects of Copenhagen atomics and, um, you know, just sitting from the outside, I, you know, how excited are you for this 2028 criticality? Because it feels like your, you know, you've, you've, you're in a very solid position to, to really get this test, um, you know, uh, well done. Yeah. And, um, talk to me about this test. What do you want to achieve? And, and how excited is everybody at Copenhagen atomics to, you know, laser focus on this next big mission?

Yeah. So it is very important in terms of breaking that milestone because a lot of nuclear regulators around the world are of course looking to that and say, oh, did it work? Yes, it did work, but I'm 100% sure it will work. I mean, the, the technical challenges are more or less solved a hundred percent by now. I don't think we will run into any big questions there. Um, of course we still need all the paperwork and all the sort of, uh, legal approvals and so on. And that will take some time and I'm sure we will run into some legal issues there when you try to make approvals for a nuclear technology, there's always some bumps on the road and I don't know what they are yet. That's really, really difficult to predict. Uh, that really depends on the regulator and the other end. Sort of a, so we will have to see along the way what, what comes up and then we will have to solve those one at a time. Um, but, uh, and, uh, and we are very excited to finally get that full license and, and being able to turn on the reactor. I mean, we've been waiting for this for more than 10 years. So of course we are very excited about it, but, uh, but at the same time, we also moving forward with the commercial reactors. And, uh, by the time we get the test reactor up and running, I'm pretty sure we will, we will always already have submitted a number of licenses for commercial reactors. And, and then once we get those granted and our customers can get the financing in place, then they can start paying us and we can start building the reactors. So that's also a super exciting. So yeah, lots of exciting milestones ahead of, uh, where we are now.

When do you think the first customer will, will, you know, sign that contract and get one of your reactors? What year are you aiming for that?

Yeah. So of course we already have some contracts. Uh, there's nobody who has transferred the $50 million yet. Um, but, uh, many of these contracts are, uh, confidential. So I cannot say exactly what's in the contract. Uh, but I can say that there's more than a handful of customers who are already interested in getting a license and it's, you know, when you, that's another thing. If you, if you apply for a license for a nuclear reactor at a certain site, uh, we should expect that maybe half of them will not get the license. So if we, let's just make it simple. If we have 10 customers that are applying for licenses, uh, my expectation is that one will get it fast, you know, another four, it will take some time and then one will take a long time and then four of them will never get the license. So, so the one that we're most excited about is the one that will get it fast because that means that we can get reactors, commercial reactors out and up there and running. Uh, the, the, there are going to be a number of customers that are sort of have a slow licensing process. For example, here in Europe, where it will take many years, six, seven years to get all the licensing, but eventually they will make it and we can sell them reactors. But of course that's not anytime soon. Uh, and then there will be some of them that apply for licenses that will never get it. And that's also why there's, there's all these confidential agreements because, uh, energy companies don't want to be public about these, what, what they are doing, especially when they're not sure that they can actually get the license.

No, it's great. Well, thank you for sharing that information. Um, you know, it really gives us a good feel, uh, watching this show that, you know, there is some, a lot of activity going on behind the scene for customers and they're, they're interested. And there's obviously, you know, you're very close to, to getting to that commercial sort of, you know, um, point of, of getting that business out of the, the development. You've got everything sorted and now you're actually a business you're running. You've got customers, you, you're looking to scale. And so, so I'm very excited and I wish you all the best with that 2028, uh, criticality coming. I want to move into your culture, um, um, as Copenhagen atomics as a company, your team, why is it that top talent want to join Copenhagen atomics? You guys are Danish. I love Danish people, a very quirky culture. I think as a kid, I love Danish cartoons and lots of drawing cartoons. I was very much into it. So tell me a little bit about your culture. What makes Copenhagen atomic special, why top talent want to work for you over, you know, big tech, artificial intelligence, other nuclear companies. Give us a taste of that.

Yeah. So, uh, I think it's very exciting where we are right now. We are, we're hiring lots of new people and scaling the, the company. And you know, if you have a big company with 10,000 employees, each employee doesn't have that much effect on the direction of the company. But right now in Copenhagen atomics, we are close to a hundred people, so you can still have a big impact on the direction the company is taking. You can still be part of inventing all the different systems we're using, and you can be part of setting up the first, uh, fuel supply factory or the first, uh, lithium manufacturing site. Uh, and, and you can still be part of it when it's the first of almost everything. Um, and I think that that's what many, especially engineers find very exciting, um, that it's not a big company where they've been making the same product for decades. And you just have to fill out yet another document about quality assurance or whatever. Here you actually get to build things. And we have a culture where, uh, the engineers are required to be in the workshop. So they don't sit in the office behind a computer or even worse at home, you know, working from home in front of front of the computer here at it, at our facility, they are in the workshop every day, working with the technicians in the workshop. They're working with the welders, electricians and so on, to build the systems and test the systems and make sure it works. So of course we order a lot of components from suppliers and they have to do CAD drawings. So they are also working in front of their computer in the office, making CAD drawings and so on, and then ordering components from suppliers. But when those components arrive here, we want the engineers to be in the workshop at helping assemble the different machines or systems that they're building and testing those to, to learn exactly what are the, you know, what works and what doesn't work from the components that they were designing. And, uh, and I think that they actually love that. They love to work with the welders and the electricians and, and machinists and so on to, uh, to build the, you know, it, I think this is why people become an engineer. That's because they want to build something with their hands and that's what they can do here. They can actually build stuff and it's cool stuff. It's like, you know, mom, I built a nuclear reactor today with my own hands. You know, that's, I think that's why they want to work here.

That's amazing. Um, yeah, I mean, you know, I always, you know, I talk to a lot of people about Copenhagen atomics and why it is such an important company for the world, for society. And, you know, that as a mission for me, if I was to work for somebody, you know, I want to work for important companies in the world because it's about that mission, that purpose that, um, you know, we, we, um, we all want to be part of. So what is the mission of Copenhagen atomics?

Yeah. So it's, it is, it is to get the form moons, all reactors out in as commercial reactors and mass manufacturer. Those, it was always, it also says, so that we have a number of slogans. The, the, the, the main slogan is energy equals prosperity. So it basically tells you that, you know, this is how we create a prosperous society. Uh, and the, the second slogan we have is form, uh, molds, all reactors, uh, met, uh, sorry, mass manufacturing for molds, all reactors. So it's all about not making just one or two reactors. Like, like they've done with the classical reactors. Uh, but we want to make thousands or hopefully someday when I get really, really old, millions of reactors. And that's, you know, it's completely different scale of energy production that we've ever seen before. And that's, that's what exciting, because if every person on the planet gets plenty of energy, I mean, we can do all the fun stuff and then we can fly on airplanes. We can drive electrical cars. We can, you know, use, uh, lots of water spa, uh, swimming pools, water sports, all kinds of stuff. And many, many things become possible and all products become cheaper. Um, relative to your salary, of course.

Yeah. Amazing. Um, so how many employees do you have now? And what's the average length that they stay? I would assume some, some, some place like Copenhagen atomics people, you know, on average work for a decade, you know, they don't just switch and move to different companies. So how many employees and how long do, do employees work for?

Yes. So we, we started 10 years ago and, uh, and have been scaling up very slowly, especially in the beginning. It was very slowly. Uh, we are right now today, we are 70 people, but we've already hired more people that are joining soon. I think before the end of the year, we would be more than 100 people here at this facility. Um, and we also starting other in other locations soon. Um, and then the average age of our employees are roughly 30 years. So we have a very young workforce and that's also because we expect them to, to stay on the team for many years, uh, because this is a longterm business. Uh, you know, we, we want to get to mass manufacturing and we want to scale up that, that whole, uh, production in several different sites. So we, we want young people who can stay here for many years. And many people were hired, uh, five years ago and they are still here. Of course, we also have some people that stopped and getting new on board, but, but most people stay, uh, once they are hired and, uh, and that's great. And, uh, and I hope we can continue to do that too, to get people on board and they will stay for it for 10 years. I mean, so 10 years ago, it was more or less only the founders. And all the founders are still here. So you can say that the early, early employees are still here. But, um, but it's, we, we didn't start hiring sort of lots of people until five years ago. So most of the people who are here have been here five years. A few have been here six years. Um,

yeah. Amazing. So the other question I have is that, you know, you're obviously, you know, in the early stages of, you know, before you go get commercial and then mass produce, um, do you offer equity, equity to your new talent and new, new employees? Is that a way to attract, you know, highly talented people because, you know, they can see, they can get, uh, they can 10 X their return and their value instead of just being, you know, an employee. Is that something you offer?

Yes, uh, it is. And I think most, uh, technology companies do that. Uh, so in our case, it's, it's a warrant program. So, uh, if employees are here for many years, they, they sort of earn the right to warrant and eventually those two warrants can be used to buy stocks and at a lower cost than on the, you know, on the market. And that's a way to, to make money as an employee. Uh, so we do have a warrant program and, and, um, and there are also some warrants for if you achieve special things that are of high value to the company. Uh, but we also have to balance in a way where we cannot give away all the value to the, uh, employees. I mean, the, the, the investors, of course, the ones that are entitled to the return on investment because they are the ones paying for our salaries every day, you know, all, including all the employees. So it's important to find the right balance between who gets stocks and how much, and what are the return on that investment. Uh, but of course we also have some employees who just took their hard earned money and paid the taxes. You know, the taxes are quite high in Denmark, so they paid their taxes and then they took the money after tax and bought, uh, stocks, uh, from the company. So I actually, that's even better for me. If, if people want to take their hard earned money after they paid the tax and they, and then buy stocks and coping atomics, uh, that shows me that the people who work here really believe in what we're doing. Uh, but of course, uh, all of the employees get these warrants. Um, so that's, uh, and you don't, you don't have to pay from at least not now when you, um, in the early states of eventually when you want to convert it into a stock, you do have to pay, but a much lower cost than, than the stock price.

That's amazing. Well, Thomas, this has been such a fascinating conversation and so inspiring. I want to wrap it up and I have three more questions for you. My first one is, um, you know, I want to talk about investors. Um, you have, you know, tell me about your current rounds and new rounds and how can they reach you and how can they, uh, participate? Tell us, you know, what rounds are closing, what's opening and you know, what are you looking for in terms of investors?

Yes. So, uh, so we've, we've just had a period now where we were closed for new investments for more or less a half a year, but now we are opening up again to allow investors to invest. Uh, but those are investors that can invest a minimum 200,000 euros. Uh, that's an absolute minimum to, to buy new shares, but there's also sometimes an opportunity to buy secondary shares. Sometimes some of the existing shareholders that has been with us for already, you know, five, six, eight years, they want to sell a little bit of their shares. So there are sort of a secondary market as well. And we can also help people want to buy small amounts. You know, I talked about our employees before if they wanted to buy, that's how they buy small, small amount of shares. That's from the secondary share pool. Uh, but of course the, what we are most interested is in is bigger investors, uh, for new investments. And honestly, the, the investors we're looking for now are investors who can invest, uh, sort of five to 50 million US dollars. And, uh, and we are in dialogue with a number of investors for this investment round that is just about to open again. And I, I expect that we will close that, uh, by the summer, summer 2026. Uh, so if people want to be part of that, now is the time to, to get in contact with us and they can just reach out on our website. We have a number of email addresses, but the best one is called invest@copenhagenatomics.com. Um,

amazing. My second question is customers, um, anyone listening and they want to reach out to you and want to start a process off, you know, um, putting the name on the, on the waiting list. Uh, what is the process? How can they reach out to you and, and how to, how long does that take? How do you interact with them?

Yeah. Yeah. So we, we get the at least one new customer every week. Uh, and it's basically people who hear about this technology through podcasts like this one or, or some YouTube video or article in social media or whatever it is. And, and they contact us. Uh, we have a number of email addresses that I think the best one for that is sales@copenhagenatomics.com. And they write to us and say, you know, can, how can I buy these reactors? And, uh, the first thing they need to sign is a confidential, a confidentiality agreement, a sort of NDA. And then, and then we, we give them a number of documents. They read the documents and then we have some online meetings and, and then there's sort of a process that they go through in order to start submitting a site license for their, uh, the particular location where they want to put the nuclear reactors. And that's the first thing that they need to do is, is get a site that can be used for these nuclear reactors. Um,

amazing. Thank you for that. Last question. Uh, new employees, they want to sign up, um, and they, they, they want to apply for jobs. Um, how they interact with you and, and where do they go and looking for, for, for new roles you have at Copenhagen atomics.

Yeah. So on our website, we have a number of open positions all the time. And of course it changes over time, but, uh, so they can apply for the jobs directly on our website, or they can also send an email to jobs@copenhagenatomics.com. And even if they, if they feel that the, you know, 10 or 20 positions that are open right now is not the right one for them. They can still send us an unsolicited application and, and we will look at that. Uh, of course we are hiring more candidates from the, the open job positions, but we also hiring from unsolicited, uh, applicants every now and then.

Amazing. Thomas, what can I say? This has been, I feel like this has been a very important chat that we've had. And thank you so much for your time. You're someone probably have a very full schedule. Um, and my last question is, is there anything I've missed? Is there anything else you would like to add?

Um, yeah, I think, I think we, we all have to think about how the world is going to change when energy becomes much cheaper. Uh, I think the whole world changed when the airplane was invented. I think the whole world changed when the car was invented. I also think the whole world changed when the computer became commonplace. It took many years from the computer was invented until it was something normal that everybody had or, or the mobile phone. And I think this, this invention of, of the onion core and thorium reactors, where we can make energy a much lower cost, but not only low cost energy, but also it can really scale like crazy where we can mass manufacture these reactors and, and get much more energy to many countries. I think it's going to change the world. It's going to lower the cost of many products and especially for those countries who embrace this technology. And we have to think about how is the world we know today going to change over the next 10 and 20 years. I think that's, that's what I want to leave the listeners with, uh, because I think you would see lots changes. And of course, some of the other technologies that are happening right at the same time as, uh, is AI and blockchain technology and so on. So, so lots of stuff is going to, to change in the coming years and Copenhagen Atomics is right in the heart of that.

Well, I think that's a beautiful place to end this podcast. Thank you so much for your time, Thomas.

Thank you.