Turning led or bismuth into gold

[Genecks]

Let's just say I don't believe the news. I'm throwing that out there. There are a few websites, such as about.com and scientificamerican.com that talk about how expensive it would be to engage in nuclear transmutation of bismuth into gold.

 

In 1980, when the bismuth-to-gold experiment was carried out, running particle beams through the Bevalac cost about $5,000 an hour, “and we probably used about a day of beam time,” recalls Oregon State University nuclear chemist Walter Loveland, one of the researchers on the project. Glenn Seaborg, who shared the 1951 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work with heavy elements and who died in 1999, was the senior author on the resulting study. “It would cost more than one quadrillion dollars per ounce to produce gold by this experiment," Seaborg told the Associated Press that year. The going rate for an ounce of gold at the time? About $560.

 

 

That's nice. Supposedly, computers used to cost a lot back in the 1980s, a really top notch one. However, technology, theory, and methodology has improved.

 

Now it's said that "It would cost more than one quadrillion dollar per ounce to produce gold by" the experiment that was used in the 1980s. Yeah, I have a hard time believing that. Actually, another issue is that no one ever seems to cite the journal articles or publications, as if this stuff is TOP SECRET. I have not seen any journal articles yet with equipment describes, so I can't make a cost estimate. And I feel like these news sources are talking out of their black holes.

 

Seeing as gold has become expensive with all-time highs, then is it worthwhile to turn bismuth into gold yet?

Edited April 6, 2014 by Genecks

[NowakScience]

If it would have cost one quadrillion in 1980, I doubt the change would be significant enough today to make it a viable operation to pursue.

 

A quadrillion is a phenomenal amount of money.

Edited April 6, 2014 by NowakScience

[John Cuthber]

 

 

 

Seeing as gold has become expensive with all-time highs, then is it worthwhile to turn bismuth into gold yet?

No.

Do you know how big a quadrillion is?

Also, unlike computer power accelerator beam time hasn't got much cheaper because there's no mass-market.

[CharonY]

Also these things require lots of energy. The price for energy has not been massively reduced in the last decades, I believe.