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.
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.
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
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.