It would still be using reprocessed fuel and as you say the US isn't into that game now, maybe later, it would not be easy to get recycling started in the US again until it was a proven method without safety or proliferation being addressed?
GEH do have two seperation methods at Wilmington one is an older wet processing plant and the other is a dry processing plant, both are in mothballs ATM but the guys from the UK who wrote that, said the latter could easily be repurposed, I didn't originally write that, two engineers from the UK who were visiting the plant at Wilmington did, the purpose why they were there is that they were going over revised plans for PRISM and SMR's.
I do think that using UNF to fuel some reactors would be a good thing, although it can't be used in a lot of reactors at the moment, and besides Oklo there are many other SMR's coming that will require HALEU but can't use UNF, The Oklo plant can run of HALEU as well see here-: https://www.powermag.com/exclusive-...aleu-could-be-groundbreaking-for-new-nuclear/
So why build a plant that that recycles UNF now? a fuel that can only be used in certain reactors, when a purpose built HALEU plant could be used in a lot of new and existing reactors, it said as much in the link above where they see HALEU production as growing exponentially.
The article I posted, was from what I saw in two parts, it was not really clear enough on that IMHO!
But Paducah is a a Shuttered Nuclear Facility, there is no getting away from that fact.
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