My first thought was “what happens to all that gold under neutron irradiation?” Apparently it transmutes back to Mercury 198 with beta decay, which is the wrong isotope. But if Mercury 198 gets hit again… I think it turns into 199, which is also stable?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold-198

A lot of papers for these reactions are behind stupid subscription paywalls :(

Still though, it does seem extremely fortuitous, and it’s possible the gold doesn’t become impossibly radioactive. Maybe there’s some other chain that will cause problems, but the immediate concern in the bulk materials seems… alright.

Singularity Sky is not the torment nexus I expected.

Deuterium-tritium sounds a lot like stuff from star trek

I wouldnt believe shit until they’ve answered the stability behind these reactions. Like the Lead article where they transformed lead into another element maybe Gold…? Ok but now you would have an unstable isotope of gold that would decay.

Edit: I read the article and it’s stable in theory.

This is rich!

Another thing fusion reactors would be good for is “burning” high radioactivity fission waste.

…Keeping such waste in a hole isn’t that expensive, so maybe the economic viability is questionable, but still. Fusion is great sources of very high temperature neutrons for anything that needs it.

That being said, I’m skeptical of all the other stuff needed to make it practical. Like, say, the extreme neutron flux making all that incredible expensive containment equipment radioactive.

Fun ~~fact~~ joke: The chemistry of oils is called "Öl-Chemie" in german which sounds almost like alchemy.