must sit for about 17.7 years to be below a banana equivalent level of activity.

Banana for scale!

I understood some of those words. Nevertheless, thanks for providing some crucial context.

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.

The safe level isn't that important, because the gold can be put into an ETF investment vehicle, which is a substantial enough demand for gold. National reserves (the vast majority of gold demand) too are long term holders.

2t/GWhth is a huge amount. While the best case economics for fusion is 30c/kwh cost = $3m/Gwhe, that would be 3GWhth = 6T of gold. Even at $45/oz (1/100th of current value) that would be $8m/Gwhe revenue, and would likely be able to sell electricity at market rates as the "waste product", or not even bother with the expense/complexity of electricity generation.

You can't spell "demonstrations" without "demon" (or "monstra").

“If," ["the management consultant"] said tersely, “we could for a moment move on to the subject of fiscal policy. . .” “Fiscal policy!" whooped Ford Prefect. “Fiscal policy!" The management consultant gave him a look that only a lungfish could have copied. “Fiscal policy. . .” he repeated, “that is what I said.” “How can you have money,” demanded Ford, “if none of you actually produces anything? It doesn't grow on trees you know.” “If you would allow me to continue.. .” Ford nodded dejectedly. “Thank you. Since we decided a few weeks ago to adopt the leaf as legal tender, we have, of course, all become immensely rich.” Ford stared in disbelief at the crowd who were murmuring appreciatively at this and greedily fingering the wads of leaves with which their track suits were stuffed. “But we have also,” continued the management consultant, “run into a small inflation problem on account of the high level of leaf availability, which means that, I gather, the current going rate has something like three deciduous forests buying one ship’s peanut." Murmurs of alarm came from the crowd. The management consultant waved them down. “So in order to obviate this problem,” he continued, “and effectively revalue the leaf, we are about to embark on a massive defoliation campaign, and. . .er, burn down all the forests. I think you'll all agree that's a sensible move under the circumstances." The crowd seemed a little uncertain about this for a second or two until someone pointed out how much this would increase the value of the leaves in their pockets whereupon they let out whoops of delight and gave the management consultant a standing ovation. The accountants among them looked forward to a profitable autumn aloft and it got an appreciative round from the crowd.”

― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

Infinite gold would be useful for electronics, but it would destroy gold's utility as a long-term store of value. So the wealth for shareholders would be finite, taken from today's gold holders.

It's the same outcome either way if that research/tech is owned privately. Energy is probably worth more than gold TBH. Gold is almost useless, energy on the other hand is needed for everything.

No, silly, we'll make infinite gold and use that to purchase infinite helium.

Foolproof!

Sell lead to a scrapyard, buy porn with the proceeds.

led -> gold -> buys computer -> internet -> porn

I mean I guess the concept there though is, isn't making things into gold pointless anyway. We can lab make diamonds too, the jewelry industry works to keep them as a distinct alternate product to protect their slave mined ones. Is the quantity used for electronics enough that it would make a difference in typical manufacturing?

Actually kind of the ironic thing to me based on the time. Did gold have a practical use in the days of alchemy? I mean obviously mass producing gold, basically would have made it completely useless back then, it could make a small group of people very rich, provided they kept the method secret and were careful about how much they sold. It seems like the whole idea was flawed on it's head even if they hadn't based it on completely incorrect basis of the world.

It looks that way.

Monte Carlo transport calculations show that neutrons produced in a tokamak power plant can convert the abundant isotope 198Hg to stable 197Au via the (n,2n) channel, yielding several tonnes of gold per plant-year without compromising the tritium breeding ratio.

I wonder what the next "ground currency" will be once we can replicate everything at the atomic level. I'm hoping it's human trust