this post was submitted on 08 Jan 2026
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Science Memes

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[โ€“] dejected_warp_core@lemmy.world 7 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

It also helps that we're talking about rather dense nuclei too. So it's not just a neutron absorbing blanket, but a rather high-performing one at that. Which you need to convert fusion outputs to heat and power anyway. And gold is soluble in mercury anyway, so extraction is already a known (albeit incredibly dangerous) process. Win-win.

yielding several tonnes of gold per plant-year

Mother of god that's a lot to magic-up outta nowhere. At first I thought this would disrupt the market, but it looks like yearly global gold production is around 3000 tons a year. So it would take a lot of reactors to impact the gold market, so... yeah. Reactors really could start paying for themselves.

[โ€“] ulterno@programming.dev 3 points 2 days ago

Reactors really could start paying for themselves.

Yeah, that should help them with their capital, storage costs and Hg procurement costs.
Now back to the energy generation...