OP is correct. You don't need breeder technology to produce plutonium. In fact, the US produced enough in 1945 to build and detonate two plutonium-based atomic bombs. There are hundreds of tons of plutonium that have been produced and stockpiled worldwide, not including the thousands of nuclear warheads in existence and the thousands that can/could be decomissioned.
> You don't need breeder technology to produce plutonium. In fact, the US produced enough in 1945 to build and detonate two plutonium-based atomic bombs.
You can extract plutonium from spent fuel, I agree to that. This is what makes spent fuel processing expensive and this is what was used in 1945 and also turns any fuel waste into a proliferation issue. But converting depleted uranium (U-238) from spent fuel into fissile plutonium or whatever isotope, like GP suggested, is a different thing which would necessarily need some nuclear reaction.
However, you DO need breeder technology to treat all the 238U as a fuel. With burner reactors, the 239Pu produced is less than the fissionable material consumed, and most of the 238U ends up not being usable.
I'll add that with current technology, you can't reprocess MOX fuel another time (too many higher isotopes of Pu and transuranics beyond Pu are produced), so any Pu in it after it's consumed must be disposed of.
