this post was submitted on 27 Jul 2025
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Last week, Marathon Fusion, a San Francisco-based energy startup, submitted a preprint detailing an action plan for synthesizing gold particles via nuclear transmutation—essentially the process of turning one element into another by tweaking its nucleus. The paper, which has yet to undergo peer review, argues that the proposed system would offer a new revenue stream from all the new gold being produced, in addition to other economic and technological benefits.

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[–] Atropos@lemmy.world 111 points 2 months ago (4 children)

"But it’s worth noting that the same process would likely result in the production of unstable and potentially radioactive isotopes of gold. As such, Rutkowski admitted, the gold would have to be stored for 14 to 18 years before it could be labeled radiation-safe."

Ah yes, 18-year vintage, very nice choice. Pairs well with a 3 carat lab grown diamond!

[–] ch00f@lemmy.world 41 points 2 months ago (3 children)

This is like a reverse Goldfinger plan. Could have an interesting impact on the gold market if it can be done at scale.

I'm sure most gold mining operations take at least a few years to get permitted and started and then there's risk that you won't find as much gold as expected.

Compared to a lump of gold that all you have to do is not lose it and it will appreciate in value all on its own.

[–] orbituary@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

"All you have to do is find it."

The value of gold is not just in its scarcity, properties, luster, purity, etc., but also in the effort it takes to find or mine it. So, sure. Trip over a nugget and you're...golden.

The same concept can be loosely applied to the abstraction of crypto currency. It takes energy and computational effort to acquire if you don't just buy it.

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[–] chirospasm@lemmy.ml 29 points 2 months ago (3 children)

It's only irradiated gold if it comes from the Radioactive Startup Part of San Fransisco.

Otherwise, it's just sparkling rock.

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[–] NaibofTabr@infosec.pub 7 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

I was wondering how radioactive the resulting material would be. Twenty years is totally viable for a power plant. Reactors in the US have been storing nuclear waste on site for a lot longer than that.

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[–] FauxPseudo@lemmy.world 48 points 2 months ago
[–] Faceman2K23@discuss.tchncs.de 45 points 2 months ago (1 children)

any particle accelerator can do that just incredibly slowly.

Alchemy of that sort has been doable for generations, it's just WILDLY impractical!

[–] aviationeast@lemmy.world 28 points 2 months ago (1 children)

In theory but can they do it efficiently. Probably not. And definitely not yet. But hey let them get the fool's money.

[–] Sabin10@lemmy.world 15 points 2 months ago (2 children)

I read up on this the other day and their claims are 8 tons produced per gigawatt of energy consumed. Even if they manage a quarter. Of that, it's enough to obliterate the value of gold. I doubt this will actuary go anywhere either way but it would be nice to see.

[–] antler@feddit.online 12 points 2 months ago (2 children)

This article says (5 tonnes/yr) per GW produced. It's a fusion reactor, so it's making electricity, not consuming it.

At $0.05/kWh, 1 GWh of electricity is $438 million. At $3400/troy ounce, 5 tonnes of gold is $545 million. So that jives with the company's estimate on the article that the sale of gold could double their revenue.

All bunk, of course

[–] captainlezbian@lemmy.world 6 points 2 months ago (1 children)

This is a fusion reactor, I'll believe its making energy instead of consuming it when someone manages to get one to be net energy positive

[–] antler@feddit.online 5 points 2 months ago

Sure - they're claiming to do two very difficult things simultaneously (net positive fusion and transmute mercury to gold at scale) which makes me even more skeptical. It's like saying "Not only can pigs fly, but we've taught them to simultaneously do calculus."

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[–] SheeEttin@lemmy.zip 10 points 2 months ago

That's an enormous amount!

Most of the value of gold these days is its use in electronics, and jewelery. I'm fine with it being made cheap and plentiful. Anyone holding gold (or gold-backed investments) as opposition to other types of investments is going to see a big loss, but that's what they bought into.

[–] Gladaed@feddit.org 26 points 2 months ago (5 children)

This is stupid, but not for the reasons you would think.

The energy required to change lead into gold is bigger than their difference in price.

[–] frezik@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 points 2 months ago

The whole point of the paper is that limitation has been breached. The fusion plant would primarily create electricity, and gold is a profitable byproduct.

It's not out of peer review, though.

[–] Allero@lemmy.today 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

But this reactor turns mercury into gold, and is meant to produce power.

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[–] MegaUltraChicken@lemmy.world 24 points 2 months ago

Good to see Gargamel following his dreams.

[–] Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works 21 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Alchemy you say? Take my money now, I'll ask questions later. Glad we got in on this before the peer review!

[–] postmateDumbass@lemmy.world 7 points 2 months ago

Kings dont fund science, Kings fund alchemy!

USA USA USA ...

[–] EnsignWashout@startrek.website 6 points 2 months ago

I'll wait and see if they can add some AI to it. But if they can, I'll invest my entire life savings.

[–] baggachipz@sh.itjust.works 18 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Should change their name to Rumpelstiltskin Energy

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[–] Etterra@discuss.online 15 points 2 months ago

So do it. Crash the economy, rip that bandaid right off.

[–] TachyonTele@piefed.social 13 points 2 months ago (1 children)

The search for the philosophers stone never ended.

[–] QuantumSparkles@sh.itjust.works 10 points 2 months ago

I really think I’m close, I just need to distill a little more urine

[–] kokesh@lemmy.world 10 points 2 months ago (7 children)

Why do we try to turn things into gold? The price of gold would collapse if we succeeded, so wouldn't it be completely pointless?

[–] Thedogdrinkscoffee@lemmy.ca 13 points 2 months ago (3 children)

I dunno. I would be cool with it if we stopped mining for Gold with all the environmental problems and found a way to profitably clean up the mercury from past gold mining and places like Grassy Narrows with extensive mercury poisoning.

[–] zaphod@sopuli.xyz 10 points 2 months ago

I would assume that this would lead to a rise in mercury mining instead of cleaning up Mercury contaminations, because that would probably be cheaper. And I don't think mercury mining is any less toxic than gold mining.

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[–] zaphod@sopuli.xyz 9 points 2 months ago

Who gives a shit about the gold price except for some idiots who think it has some inherent value beyond some applications in electronics.

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[–] LovableSidekick@lemmy.world 9 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (3 children)

When they can do transparent aluminum, I'm in!

edit: yes I know there's a ceramic material called ALON, which the manufacturer calls transparent aluminum because it contains aluminum oxynitride, but I don't think that's what Scotty meant. ALON is about 30-35% aluminum, same as the amount of lead in leaded crystal glass, which isn't "transparent lead".

[–] Faceman2K23@discuss.tchncs.de 6 points 2 months ago

Aluminium Oxide (Al~2~O~3~) can be crystal clear too, it's just Sapphire, I have a chunk of it on my wrist right now, looks pretty clear to me, and almost as hard as a diamond.

[–] partial_accumen@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Transparent aluminum was around in 2018 source

[–] Faceman2K23@discuss.tchncs.de 4 points 2 months ago

a lot longer than that.

Synthetic corundum, spinel and others have been around for over 120 years, and optically transparent uncoloured sapphire glass for over 80 years. They are just aluminium oxides.

ALON is just the new hotness, and not as good as some others in terms of visible light transparency.

[–] qyron@sopuli.xyz 8 points 2 months ago (1 children)

You want gold? Tons of it? Go mine the asteroid belt. But if it is to become plentiful what value will it hold?

Will cheap gold plated circuitry be back?

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Woo! Alchemy achieved.

[–] frezik@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

It also creates some radioactive isotopes of gold, so it'd have to sit there for 12-14 years before being useful.

My guess is that once the radioactive cycle time is up, it'd create more gold than the economy knows what to do with, and the price would collapse. They're quoting 5 metric tons of gold created per GWh of electricity created by the fusion reactor. There are 3,000 metric tons of gold mined every year. Worldwide energy production is 26,000,000 GWh. If we had 20% of that on one of these fusion reactors, there would be 26,000,000 metric tons produced.

It's estimated that for all of human history, 244,000 metric tons has been mined.

Gold ain't that useful, and it isn't even that artistically desirable if it's common. I think we'd struggle to use that much. Maybe if the price drops below copper we'll start using it for electrical wiring (gold is a worse conductor than copper, but better than aluminum). Now, if the process could produce something like platinum or palladium, that'd be pretty great. Those are super useful as catalysts, and there isn't much we can extract from the Earth's crust.

If late stage capitalism hasn't played itself out by then, what's going to happen is similar to solar deployment now. Capitalists see that solar gives you the best return on investment. Capitalists rush to build a whole lot of solar farms. But focusing on just solar is a bad idea; it should be combined with wind, hydro, and storage to get the best result. Now that solar has to be turned off so it doesn't overload the grid, and that cuts into the profits they were expecting.

Same would likely happen here. The first investors make tons of money with gold as a side effect of electricity generation. A second set of investors rushes in, collapses the price of gold, and now everyone is disappointed. Given the time it would have to sit before it's at safe radiation levels, this process could take over 20 years to play out.

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[–] Lucidlethargy@sh.itjust.works 5 points 2 months ago

Inb4 radioactive gold hits the market, leading to Geiger counters being standard in gold buying businesses.

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