I am really not sure you understand what is involved to scale up...

I am really not sure you understand what is involved to scale up from lab to process plant, five years is entirely reasonable from where they are at, without any guarantee of success. And this would still require significant capital.

Less time would require a very, very large investment at more than some risk, the sort of investment that would mean it would possibly be a better bet to just buy out GXY and PLS and then just go for it with a known process and timeframe.