Global Laser Enrichment, a company established to provide enrichment services in the United States, plans to invest $1.76 billion to develop the Paducah Laser Enrichment Facility (PLEF) in Paducah, Kentucky. The company holds a license for Silex laser separation technology.

The site in Paducah is the location of the former DoE Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant, closed down in 2013. GLE's interest in the site goes back to 2014, when it applied to the NRC for a license.

Another US company, General Matter, leased a plot of land there. It appears that both companies plan to take advantage of the subsidy provided by the US government for the development of domestic enrichment capacity.

Both apparently plan to re-enrich uranium tails from the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant. The General Matter lease included "a minimum of 7,600 cylinders of existing uranium hexafluoride." As for GLE, DoE sold about 300,000 tonnes of depleted uranium to the company in 2016.