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Marathon fusion claims to invent alchemy, making 5000 kgs gold per gigawatt

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Re: Marathon fusion claims to invent alchemy, making 5000 kgs gold per gigawatt

#51

Post by ChuckMcM »

EDIT Note: Sharp eyed commentators pointed out I misread the table, which makes the economics better. I had originally 3% but updated it to 10%

Hmmm, mercury-198 is 10%[1] of mercury, of which in 2022, China was the top supplier at 2000 tonnes[2], so 200 tonnes of that is the "good stuff". Not a lot of easy access to open data on Mercury spot prices, this source[3] has it at $2000 per flask which is 76 lbs or 34.5 kg. Using our 10% number that's 7.6lbs per flask. Which if you convert that into 7.6lbs of gold you can sell it for a bit over $300K. So not too bad. Presumably a lot of currently shut down mercury mines might start up again, but you're adding 9 tonnes of mercury 'waste' to get your 1 ton of Hg-198. The cost of disposing that might be challenging. If you could sell it back at the current spot price for mercury by flask it would be great, but with all the extra supply I think the price might go down? Which kind of helps your economics until someone only puts mercury on the market that they have already removed the HG-198 from. Being vertically integrated with your own mercury mines and reserves would be good here.

The thing I don't get is why fusion? I mean you can get fast neutrons out of fission too, what sort of gamma flux do you need to generate Hg-197? Can the LHC do this trick? I mean seriously can you put a beaker of mercury in the beam path and transmute 3% of it to gold? Seems like a way to get budget for more experiments right?

[1] https://chemlin.org/isotope/mercury-198

[2] https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/mercury-p...

[3] https://www.metalary.com/mercury-price/

Re: Marathon fusion claims to invent alchemy, making 5000 kgs gold per gigawatt

#52

Post by modeless »

shutupnerd0000 wrote: post #22
modeless wrote: post #6

Unfortunately gold generated in this way would be radioactive. They calculate they would have to store the gold for over 13 years to not require labeling as radioactive waste, or over 17 years to reach the level of radioactivity of a banana. I bet it would still be less valuable than regular gold even after that. It could still be identified, and people would discriminate against it. People are funny about nuclear wa…

Imagine a whiskey manufacturer saying "this is impossible because we'll have to age it for 13 years" lel

Imagine a whiskey manufacturer saying "our whiskey is radioactive but it's ok because it will be less radioactive by the time you drink it!"

Re: Marathon fusion claims to invent alchemy, making 5000 kgs gold per gigawatt

#53

Post by ChuckMcM »

modeless wrote: post #6

Unfortunately gold generated in this way would be radioactive. They calculate they would have to store the gold for over 13 years to not require labeling as radioactive waste, or over 17 years to reach the level of radioactivity of a banana. I bet it would still be less valuable than regular gold even after that. It could still be identified, and people would discriminate against it. People are funny about nuclear wa…

This is not a problem for finance bros, they would sell a discounted note that gave you "ownership" of the gold in 17 years at some discount on the current spot price of gold. So you'd get these things that 'mature' in 17 years and you know their going to be worth whatever the spot price of gold is then, so it becomes a simple problem of pricing the risk that gold will be worth something in 17 years (people by gold futures all the time which this basically is).

Re: Marathon fusion claims to invent alchemy, making 5000 kgs gold per gigawatt

#54

Post by modeless »

MrLeap wrote: post #49
modeless wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's produced from mercury

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.

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

Re: Marathon fusion claims to invent alchemy, making 5000 kgs gold per gigawatt

#55

Post by floxy »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #51

EDIT Note: Sharp eyed commentators pointed out I misread the table, which makes the economics better. I had originally 3% but updated it to 10% Hmmm, mercury-198 is 10%[1] of mercury, of which in 2022, China was the top supplier at 2000 tonnes[2], so 200 tonnes of that is the "good stuff". Not a lot of easy access to open data on Mercury spot prices, this source[3] has it at $2000 per flask which is 76 lbs or 34.5 kg…

Your source [1] is claiming 10.04% +/-0.003% for Mercury-198 abundance.

Re: Marathon fusion claims to invent alchemy, making 5000 kgs gold per gigawatt

#56

Post by philipkglass »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #51

EDIT Note: Sharp eyed commentators pointed out I misread the table, which makes the economics better. I had originally 3% but updated it to 10% Hmmm, mercury-198 is 10%[1] of mercury, of which in 2022, China was the top supplier at 2000 tonnes[2], so 200 tonnes of that is the "good stuff". Not a lot of easy access to open data on Mercury spot prices, this source[3] has it at $2000 per flask which is 76 lbs or 34.5 kg…

I think you read that table a little quickly. Mercury-198 is 10% of natural mercury.

According to the paper, you need neutrons of at least 9 MeV to drive the transmutation. Fission reactions don't generate neutrons with energies that high. A proton accelerator can generate high energy neutrons by spallation, but in smaller numbers. It wouldn't be economically viable to do this with accelerator generated neutrons.

The paper shows that neutrons from deuterium-tritium fusion are energetic enough (14.1 MeV) to drive the transmutation reaction, and they're a natural byproduct of a D-T fusion reactor, and adding this extra gold generating step shouldn't compromise the ordinary fuel breeding and power generating operations of a commercial fusion reactor.

So now all they need is a commercial fusion reactor. I say that with tongue firmly in cheek, but also impressed that working fusion reactors (if they ever arrive) can also upend the current gold market.

Re: Marathon fusion claims to invent alchemy, making 5000 kgs gold per gigawatt

#57

Post by ChuckMcM »

floxy wrote: post #55
ChuckMcM wrote: post #51

EDIT Note: Sharp eyed commentators pointed out I misread the table, which makes the economics better. I had originally 3% but updated it to 10% Hmmm, mercury-198 is 10%[1] of mercury, of which in 2022, China was the top supplier at 2000 tonnes[2], so 200 tonnes of that is the "good stuff". Not a lot of easy access to open data on Mercury spot prices, this source[3] has it at $2000 per flask which is 76 lbs or 34.5 kg…

Your source [1] is claiming 10.04% +/-0.003% for Mercury-198 abundance.

Well that certainly helps the economics.

Re: Marathon fusion claims to invent alchemy, making 5000 kgs gold per gigawatt

#58

Post by kristianp »

oh_my_goodness wrote: post #13

Even if this were true, at 0.15 USD/kWh it would cost more than just buying the gold. Even excluding cost of cleaning up the radioactivity, the equipment, labor, everything except the power. A GW-year is 8760 GWh. That's 8760/5000 = 1.75 GWh per kg of gold. At 0.15 USD/kWh, a GWh costs $150k US. So 1.75GWh costs about $263k. A kg of gold costs about 100k US.

This is such a fun topic to think about, it's nearly science-fiction. The problem with fusion plants is that they don't exist except as small experimental reactors. I think this could be retrofitted to existing fission plants, pumping mercury 198 gas around the outside of the core (in heat-resistant pipes of course). Still an expensive proposition as you'd want to certify that it's not going to affect the safety and reaction rates of the reactor.

Another thought is that gold is a useful product, so anything that reduces the price of gold is good for the industries that use it. Are there other rare elements that are more useful, though?

Re: Marathon fusion claims to invent alchemy, making 5000 kgs gold per gigawatt

#59

Post by more_corn »

Aeolun wrote: post #10
modeless wrote: post #6

Unfortunately gold generated in this way would be radioactive. They calculate they would have to store the gold for over 13 years to not require labeling as radioactive waste, or over 17 years to reach the level of radioactivity of a banana. I bet it would still be less valuable than regular gold even after that. It could still be identified, and people would discriminate against it. People are funny about nuclear wa…

17 years to banana is basically free money.

There’s always money in the infinite gold to banana scam.

Re: Marathon fusion claims to invent alchemy, making 5000 kgs gold per gigawatt

#60

Post by lantry »

floxy wrote: post #18
modeless wrote: post #6

Unfortunately gold generated in this way would be radioactive. They calculate they would have to store the gold for over 13 years to not require labeling as radioactive waste, or over 17 years to reach the level of radioactivity of a banana. I bet it would still be less valuable than regular gold even after that. It could still be identified, and people would discriminate against it. People are funny about nuclear wa…

>In practice, given that much of all gold is used to store value and is not actively in use, we do not expect the need to store it for 7–17 years to be a major impediment; at worst, it means that the product will initially have somewhat less value than pure 197Au, and so some discount should be applied to the value of freshly produced gold.

but when we are generating literal tons of gold for free, won't gold no longer be a good store of value because it will no longer be scarce?
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