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

https://www.marathonfusion.com/

by apugoneappu • 1 year ago

65 101 1 year ago

OK, I looked at their web site and couldn't find how they were supposed to be reaching fusion. Can anyone here point me in the right direction?

floxy9• 1 year ago

From the paper:

Using neutronics simulations, we demonstrate a tokamak with a blanket configuration that can produce 197Au at a rate of about 2 t/GWth/yr.

LargoLasskhyfv• 1 year ago

The first link on their site is alchemy.pdf behind announced a solution. Maybe read that? (40 pages) Or not, because here is the abstract ;)

Abstract A scalable approach for chrysopoeia—the transmutation of base metals into gold—has been pursued for millennia. While there have been small-scale demon- strations in particle accelerators and proposals involving thermal neutron capture, no economically attractive approach has yet been identified. We show a new scalable method to synthesize stable gold (197Au) from the abundant mer- cury isotope 198Hg using (n, 2n) reactions in a specialized neutron multiplier layer of a fusion blanket. Reactions are driven by fast 14 MeV neutrons provided by a deuterium-tritium fusion plasma, which are uniquely capable of enabling the desired reaction pathway at scale. Crucially, the scheme identified here does not negatively impact electricity production, and is also compatible with the challenging tritium breeding requirements of fusion power plant design because (n, 2n) reactions of 198Hg drive both transmutation and neutron multiplication. Using neutronics simulations, we demonstrate a tokamak with a blanket configu- ration that can produce 197Au at a rate of about 2 t/GWth/yr. Implementation of this concept allows fusion power plants to double the revenue generated by the system, dramatically enhancing the economic viability of fusion energy.

modeless6• 1 year ago

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 waste, and likely wouldn't accept arguments like "it's perfectly safe" and "it's less radioactive than a banana".

Waterluvian• 1 year ago

That seems like so little time it’s just a slight detail to iron out.

I also doubt it would be worth much less. I suspect most gold physically sits idle for longer periods of time while changing ownership often.

Aeolun• 1 year ago

17 years to banana is basically free money.

0cf8612b2e1e2• 1 year ago

Most gold does not even leave the vaults. Just paper trades on who owns it.

K0balt2• 1 year ago

Theres always money in the banana stand!

more_corn• 1 year ago

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

Ekaros• 1 year ago

Well for gold that will be placed in some vault dig deep into the ground that doesn't seem too bad trade off..

mtzaldo• 1 year ago

It reminded me of avocado trees. They take a couple of years to produce avocados and still people plant those.

dr_dshiv5• 1 year ago

And, avocados are actually as radioactive as bananas (high potassium)

floxy9• 1 year ago

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.

modeless6• 1 year ago

You guys have a lot more faith than I do in people's ability to have rational beliefs about nuclear waste.

lantry• 1 year ago

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?

shutupnerd0000• 1 year ago

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

modeless6• 1 year ago

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!"

ChuckMcM3• 1 year ago

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).

bb88• 1 year ago

The treasury sells bonds that mature after X years. So I suspect something similar could happen. But further there could be refinement if the radioactive isotopes could interact chemically in ways that gold couldn't.

Then they could sell pure gold, and then hold the crap gold for 20 years and sell that later.

BTW, I was at Teardown.

woleium• 12 months ago

This is also a well solved problem that hard cheese has. Some folks have their retirement savings invested in slowly maturing cheeses.

OutOfHere5• 1 year ago

That thought fails altogether since it will do perfectly well sitting in a vault as a reserve for a 1:1 gold backed crypto coin. Of course this holds true only until its value collapses due to its lack of scarcity.

dogma1138• 1 year ago

The biggest problem is that it would prevent this type of gold from being useful in electronics and medical applications.

But I think it may actually end up in jewelry especially as it can be mixed with “natural” gold to reduce its signature even further.

mxmlnkn3• 1 year ago

The "gold" would not be radioactive as far as I understand. The reaction is 198Hg (stable) -> 197Hg (65h half life) -> 197Au (stable). You would end up with a mix of radioactive 197Hg and stable 197Au. It should be easy to separate these with established processes because you can easily refine 99.99% gold via various chemical and electrolytic processes. But I doubt any established refinery would touch radioactive inputs because it would contaminate the whole processing chain.

jlogelin• 1 year ago

I mean, as a species we dig up gold for the sole purpose of putting it into well protected vaults as a store of value. It's not a far cry to say we'll simply store the radioactive gold in lead vaults instead. But yeah, if we can print rare earth metals now, I won't be betting on them to store economic value.

wizzwizz4• 1 year ago

previously a […] PhD candidate in Plasma Physics at Princeton University

The advice is generally not to advertise yourself as having been a PhD candidate: you're basically advertising that you couldn't complete a PhD. (Insert obligatory caveats about academia having problems, and failure to complete a PhD not implying that somebody is incapable.)

HPsquared• 1 year ago

"Didn't" is not the same as "couldn't". Priorities change, and completing a PhD is a massive time commitment.

crinkly• 1 year ago

As a former PhD candidate, yes that.

Honestly in my case I discovered I like being paid actual money and despise academic politics. Got a job offer so I phoned in sick on a catch up with my adviser and never went back. No one even checked on me for 6 weeks (!)

ip26• 1 year ago

Given he left Princeton early and is now supposedly synthesizing gold merely two years later, the narrative seems in his favor.

floxy9• 1 year ago

allegedly synthesizing gold in large volumes

Are they alleging they are currently synthesizing gold? Seems like they are saying, if you do X, Y, and Z with a fusion reactor at some time in the future, you will also get gold as a byproduct.

greesil• 1 year ago

Well, he did pass his qualifiers so I guess that means something.

LinguaBrowse• 1 year ago

During my research internship, I met many PhD students whose labs simply ran out of funding. In some cases, they'd ended up having to scrap their PhD as the topic was too specialist to do anywhere else (e.g. requires a high level of biocontainment) and nobody wanted to fund it.

I think if you got three years into a PhD and were faced with the prospect of starting it all over again in another lab, it wouldn't take much to convince you to throw in the towel and do something else instead.

anigbrowl2• 1 year ago

Silver stackers win again /s

OutOfHere5• 1 year ago

Silver would be obly slightly more difficult to synthesize. Rhodium and iridium would be a lot more difficult.

OutOfHere5• 1 year ago

After some studying, there is absolutely no stable element cannot be synthesized using the neutron supply of a fusion reactor. Silver is relatively easy to synthesize from cadmium.

This leaves us with certain cryptocurrencies.

anigbrowl2• 1 year ago

That's the joke ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

oh_my_goodness3• 1 year ago

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.

modeless6• 1 year ago

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

oh_my_goodness3• 1 year ago

Wait, really?

dwattttt• 1 year ago

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.

amelius• 1 year ago

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

a1371• 1 year ago

15 cents per kWh is much more expensive than what you buy electricity for around the world. Also, they can time their usage for when the electricity is free or very cheap

kristianp• 1 year ago

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?

stubish• 1 year ago

I doubt I'll see it in my lifetime. Designing the reactors, building the prototype, building the real power plant... 30 years minimum. Then waiting another 13 years for the gold to stop being radioactive (although maybe radioactive gold sitting unmoving in a vault is worth as much as non-radioactive gold sitting unmoving in a vault if you pay your finance guys enough). And it requires high electricity prices to be profitable at all, so a bet against renewable energy generation and battery storage in that time frame (we don't have a shortage of gold). But yes, if you could create tantulum or something similar (expensive, in short supply, not artificially scarce because of hoarding)

leereeves• 1 year ago

To be clear, this is something that would be wrapped around a fusion power plant (capturing neutrons produced by fusion), not a viable fusion plant itself nor a way to generate gold from just any power plant, right?

dr_dshiv5• 1 year ago

Fuck, yes, this is the future I want. Great job guys, keep at it!

Also—I appreciate the alchemical aspects. A nice aesthetic for a future vision.

semicolon_storm• 1 year ago

It requires mercury-198 as an input. The only quote I could find for mercury-198 is about $15K per milligram.

So now we just need to figure out how to make mercury-198 cheaply.

oh_my_goodness3• 1 year ago

That's even better! We can turn gold into mercury-198 and sell that. Gold is dirt cheap at $0.11 per mg. We're rich!

floxy9• 1 year ago

There are 7 stable isotopes of mercury, and mercury-198 makes up ~10% of naturally occurring mercury. The paper covers a lot of ground here, see section 5.2.2 "Mercury Isotope Separation", where they are shooting for $2.4/kg.

philipkglass2• 1 year ago

It's the second lightest natural isotope of mercury, comprising about 10% of natural mercury:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isotopes_of_mercury

Since mercury forms vapor so easily, it should be easily enriched in gas centrifuges like uranium (more easily, actually, since the starting isotopic abundance is higher and the chemistry is simpler). The high price of purified mercury-198 at present is probably due to it being a scientific curiosity with no industrial demand.

RA2lover• 1 year ago

It's 10% of natural mercury. you're looking into separating it cheaply instead, or at least hope the other naturally occuring isotopes don't cause too many problems.

BoiledCabbage• 1 year ago

If it's that easy to separate from natural mercury then it seems like they could make a fortune just separating it and selling the separated mercury.

Something isn't adding up

pointlessone• 1 year ago

Ah, I was wondering why would anyone tell they can get 5 metric tonnes of gold (~$535M) for 2.5 GW of power (~$500). Regular mercury is ~$210/kg ($1.05m/5 tonnes or 500x cheaper than gold). Although, Hg198 has 10% natural abundance. So maybe they can use raw mercury and still get decent returns depending on what othere isotopes decay into.

mxmlnkn3• 1 year ago

Even if you could separate mercury-198 for zero cost, it would only be 10% of the mercury production, and the yearly mercury production is 4500 t/yr, i.e., at most a maximum of 450 t/yr mercury-198. Compare this to gold production, which is 3100 t/yr, or silver production of 27000 t/yr. One might argue that mercury production could be ramped up if it is needed more, but its Earth's crust abundance is only slightly higher than silver, and again, mercury-198 would be 10x rarer than silver, i.e., only twice as abundant as gold.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abundance_of_elements_in_Earth...

floxy9• 1 year ago

Seems like you are interested in section 5.2.4 of the paper:

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

Since the process described here permanently transmutes mercury into a valuable material, it is possible that fusion transmutation could be considered as a form of waste disposal. While early plants will be highly incentivized to specifically transmute 198Hg, we note that the isotopes with higher neutron number can also in the long term be transmuted to 197Au...
The EU also has 6000 tons of mercury currently and expects to need to dispose of 11,000 tons over the next 40 years [95, 96]. As such, even with no change in existing processes, 14,000 metric tons of mercury could be made available for processing and isotope removal in the next ten years of fusion development, corresponding to 1400 tons of 198Hg and about the same mass of 197Au, with a current market value of ∼ $140B.

yoav• 1 year ago

Are you kidding me? I heard there’s a whole entire planet of Mercury and it’s right next to the biggest fusion reactor in our solar system.

We just have to figure out how to nudge Mercury into the Sun… cheaply.

paxys• 1 year ago

Tl;dr - they wrote a paper

bravesoul22• 1 year ago

I dont trust a site that simultaneously says "we are performing a once in a century technical feat" and "we can only say great things about this like we are selling something and not mention potential pitfalls".

impish92082• 1 year ago

Isaac Newton must be spinning in his grave.

readthenotes12• 1 year ago

"I knew mercury was involved. Just knew it!"

https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/newtons-recipe-for-alche...

impish92082• 1 year ago

*Quicksilver

ricksunny2• 1 year ago

Good lord, chemistryworld.

"Historians now know that this was a pseudonym invented by the Harvard-educated chemist George Starkey, one of the US’s first published scientists. Starkey moved to England in 1650,..."

chaboud2• 1 year ago

Actual industrial/product use of gold is less than 10%. A massive amount of gold is used for store of wealth. If gold became less scarce, it would be less expensive.

The Washington monument capstone is aluminum because aluminum was expensive in 1884. Now we make beverage containers out of aluminum. (note: I have no intention of using gold for beverage containers... I like my skin not blue)

josephcsible• 1 year ago

I like my skin not blue

Isn't that problem just with silver, not gold?

MereInterest• 1 year ago

(note: I have no intention of using gold for beverage containers... I like my skin not blue)

I thought gold was biologically inert. Any chance you’re thinking of argyria, which is caused by exposure to elemental silver?

chaboud2• 1 year ago

Gold salts (e.g., old arthritis treatment) can lead to gold poisoning, but I was really just making a joke. If you have a gold chalice in your cupboard, I think you’ll be alright.

ndsipa_pomu• 1 year ago

As others have posted, you're confusing gold with silver which can turn your skin blue (consuming lots of colloidal silver seems to be the main culprit).

Or at least I hope so as I've got a gold (plated?) AeroPress metal filter which works great although I've not noticed any metallic taste from other metal filters.

ChuckMcM3• 1 year ago

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/

floxy9• 1 year ago

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

ChuckMcM3• 1 year ago

Well that certainly helps the economics.

philipkglass2• 1 year ago

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.

JSR_FDED• 1 year ago

If about 4 million KG of gold is normally produced a year, then this newly available gold will quickly drive down prices, leaving only Bitcoin as a store of value. Talk about unintended consequences…

OutOfHere5• 1 year ago

Rhodium and iridium can become very valuable, more than they are now, if they're relatively impractical to produce cheaply using fusion.

OutOfHere5• 1 year ago

To update, yes, only Bitcoin and Litecoin remain. Monero has some tail emissions, although they safeguard the network, so it's still good.

The point is that there is absolutely no stable element that cannot be synthesized using the neutron output of a fusion reactor.

ricksunny2• 1 year ago

[Waits for people to realize that breeding at scale with neutrons has been done since the early 1940s, and then to go on to wonder whether the AEC / DoE (& their contractors) ever found an 'alternate funding source' over the intervening decades...]

b_e_n_s• 1 year ago

This blog post goes into considerable detail evaluating their preprint:

https://thebsdetector.substack.com/p/government-funded-alche...

The authors have institutional credibility, as well as a lot of ARPA-E and private funding. Additionally, their approach mostly builds on prior work in a manner that suggests the proposed mechanism is quite plausible, although at an extremely low TRL as you can imagine.

The economics do seem to check out, provided that (1) fusion energy achieves an economic net positive, (2) the engineering considerations required for this approach don't make the design of the whole plant implausible due to the narrow windows for tritium sustainability anyway, and (3) there aren't some fundamental physics issues that arise making the whole pathway impractical (such as simulations for the (n,2n) cross-section for mercury being too optimistic).

fogof• 1 year ago

The title of this post seems wrong: seems they are claiming five thousand kilograms of gold per year in a Gigawatt scale plant.

power plants can generate five thousand kilograms of gold per year, per gigawatt of electricity generation

feraldidactic• 1 year ago

How very Goldfinger.

"No, Mr Bond, I expect you to die!"

zeristor• 1 year ago

Won’t the price of gold decrease.

This can just scale, if the price of gold is factored into the economics of the process, then the price of gold would bottom out at the price of this process.

Besides I was hoping mining asteroids funded by gold, avoiding busting the market would encourage space industry.

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

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