Turning mercury into gold? Nuclear reactors may revive ancient dream of alchemy

Interesting Engineering ^ | July 24, 2025 | Abhishek Bhardwaj

[Red Badger]

How to turn Mercury into Gold:

First, Get a Nuclear Fusion Reactor.................

[P8riot]

Currently made of Unobtainium.

[crusty old prospector]

Out on the outcrop where it is mined, it is called leaverite.

[TangoLimaSierra]

If they actually manage to do this on a large scale, it won't take long till gold is the same price as lead.
Same thing as when they talk about wanting to mine an entire asteroid made of gold.

[17th Miss Regt]

The Silicon Valley-based company’s founders claimed in a yet-to-be-peer-reviewed paper.

Written by marketers, no doubt.

[HYPOCRACY]

I prefer using magic. Magic > science

[Da Coyote]

Place in the same file drawer as the “Turbo Encabulator”.

[Red Badger]

Just look at the price of diamonds in the last few years now that ‘lab created’ diamonds are all over the market... REAL diamonds, not substitutes.................

[oldtech]

This reminds me of an old cartoon showing Obama turning gold into dung. It was entitled “The Barachemist” & was an apparent depiction of Obama doing just that.

[ClearCase_guy]

one gigawatt of fusion electricity could help make up to 11,023 pounds (5,000 kg) of gold annually.

How much gold can I get with 1.21 gigawatts?

[one guy in new jersey]

+1

[mass55th]

I don’t know about alchemy, but a lot of individuals have turned perpetual war into gold for themselves.

[Red Badger]

6050 kg.......13,310 lbs.............

[dfwgator]

That’s heavy.

[dfwgator]

The only Alchemy I know of...

[af_vet_1981]

Turning mercury into gold?

Sorry, could't resist, not sorry

A one hit wonder of sorts (although he wrote Daydream Believer for the Monkees), he got Stevie Nicks to do backing vocals on this classic: JOHN STEWART ft. Stevie Nicks - Gold (1979) HD

When the lights go down in the California town
People are in for the evening
I jump into my car and I throw in my guitar
My heartbeat in time with my breathing

Driving over Kanan, singing to my soul
There's people out there turning music into gold

Ah, my buddy Jim Bass, he's a-working pumping gas
And he makes two-fifty for an hour
He's got rhythm in his hands as he's tapping on the cans
Sings rock and roll in the shower

Driving over Kanan, singing to his soul
There's people out there turning music into gold

Ah, California girls are the greatest in the world
Each one a song in the making
Singing right to me, I can hear the melody
Story is there for the taking

Driving over Kanan, singing to my soul
There's people out there turning music into gold

(Ooh)

[mass55th]

Definitely a much better alchemy.

[SaveFerris]

I was just talking with Darwin and Minerva Mayflower
about this very thing - they said they have this machine...

[TexasGator]

“per GW of fusion energy,”

GW is a unit of power, not energy.

[takebackaustin]

Can anybody explain why you can’t do this with neutrons from a fission reactor, which exists, rather than a fusion reactor? If this guy patents it the patent will expire before there are fusion reactors in service, like the Clarke comsats and the Farnsworth TVs.