I understand that the maximum a US government guaranteed loan...

I understand that the maximum a US government guaranteed loan would cover is 80% of the project costs which do not include the cost of the FEED stage. The PLEF costs of the FEED I estimate (by scaling the costs of the enrichment plant in the SA royal commission "hatch" report) are US$35m and the 20% not financed by the US government loan as US$150m (these are GLE costs NOT SLX costs - they would take 51% or 25% according to their shareholding in GLE). These are Capex and does not include operating costs of PLEF (Opex), loan interest and the incurred costs up to the lead cascade demo (I estimate based on GLE pre 2014 development costs as US$80m - SLX 51% to the change of control to Cameco (25% thereafter) plus SLX Lucas Heights cash burn to PLEF start up (est 2030) (based upon half year CY/21 report is ~A$5m/yr - this needs to be inflated @ Australian annual inflation rates).

Note that the lead cascade demo apparatus would only be a single (lead) cascade - it's not clear to me the number of cascades required this would depend upon the enrichment factor (and depletion factors) and the throughput of a each cascade; you would need to add a lot of piping and other services to the cost.

The numbers quoted in the first para are simply scaled numbers from the SA royal commission "hatch' report,which I understand was "vetted' by Silex.