Now tell me how many nucleons are in a gram. Multiply that by 23 MeV per nucleons.
That’s the energy released when turning a gram of Mercury into gold.
Is this something which can be reasonably handled / dissipated by the reaction vessel?
(What is the conversion *rate* in nucleons / sec) ?
According to Grok, it would currently cost about $217,000/gram to convert mercury into gold. Not feasible, if you are intending to set up a power plant for this purpose because gold is worth only about $80/gram.
However, and I’m not advocating for this, it may not be as costly if you are doing it as an add-on to the existing power plant and using waste electricity to do this.