Short tail B-52s lack the rudder authority to handle a 1/4 engine out at takeoff and landing speeds. The only realistic option would be business jet engines in the 15,000 lbf thrust range. You can't use more thrust to increase MTOW because of the control authority issue and there's no real point in spending all this money to save fuel on a plane that only flies a few hundred hours a year, although efficiency gains would increase payload-to-range. However, the Air Force has been using aerial refueling to do that for more than seventy years, and a B-52 now can’t fly anywhere that a KC-135 couldn’t follow.
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