JustinS007, when you said "Can't really speed up the process". It takes time to build at scale.
I sort of disagree with that statement, GLE have already stated that the Commercial Pilot at Wilmington CAN be fast tracked should money be available and requirements for the product were there at the right price, I am seeing things that "may" cause an inflection point here happening now, it all relates to supply and demand, the supply of money and the demand for the product.
For instance, it has been stated that the US will need more HALEU than they estimate they can make using today's technology that is available in the US today, they also state that they want to be at least 25% self sufficient for Uranium produced in the US, going from what I have read GLE Paducah could help with both those things, we also know that the US government has said they will increase the loan guarantees for nuclear related matters.
Yes it does take time to build a big enough enrichment plant of any description of a given size, but what GLE has, will be cheaper and faster to build than older enrichment technology or even building new mines in the US for that matter.
I have read that it will cost GLE around $2 Billion to build a plant (6MSWU) to enrich Uranium, and take around 2 years to complete (licenses in hand) to build a similar size plant using older technology will cost the, over $6 billion and possibly more, but it will also take longer to build.
WRT to licensing and environmental studies, at Paducah it was said at one point that a license had already been applied for, not sure where that went was it started? don't know? because a while back it was easy to access GLE to Government department documents on the net, that is no longer the case as they now have their own private network, so possibly things are happening in that area that we are not privvy to, talking about EIS statements for Paducah? I would have thought a great deal of that work has already been done with Paducah due to the cleanup effort that has been ongoing there.
The US government has also stated that they want NRC licensing processes fast tracked where possible? does that include what GLE are doing?
But like I said, it seems to me as if all the stars are aligning now, so things "Could" be happening faster than we know?
In my opinion I suspect so!
(20min delay)