[modeless]

The gold is a byproduct of generating the electricity. You still get to sell the electricity too.

[dwattttt]

Gold is atomically heavier than iron, fusing gold costs energy. The language in the article is ambiguous, but I believe the energy quoted is a cost.

[floxy]

They are engineering their tritium breeding to produce excess neutrons to transmute the mercury to gold.

[modeless]

It's produced from mercury

[MrLeap]

Right, fusion stops being a net producer of energy on atoms heavier than iron.

A star’s fusion reaction ceases when too much of its core turns to iron.

[modeless]

Mercury is heavier than gold so it's a fission reaction.

[MrLeap]

Ah yeah, that slid by me.

[amelius]

Yeah, but the gold price is going to drop ...

[oh_my_goodness]

Wait, really?

[one-note]

> Using our approach, power plants can generate five thousand kilograms of gold per year, per gigawatt of electricity generation (~2.5 GWth), without any compromise to fuel self-sufficiency or power output.

[snickerdoodle12]

Third paragraph from the post, in bold:

> Using our approach, power plants can generate five thousand kilograms of gold per year, per gigawatt of electricity generation (~2.5 GWth), without any compromise to fuel self-sufficiency or power output.

[floxy]

Yes, that is their selling point

https://www.marathonfusion.com/alchemy.pdf