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.
Look at the gold price for the last 10 years, it’s steadily rising. We keep producing more electronics that need gold. At the same time some gold is lost because not in all tech it can be easily recycled. On top of that gold mining is becoming more expensive because a lot of easily accessible gold has been mined out.
So even if this technology could create additional gold in the future it probably won’t out scale the growing demand.
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.
Wouldn’t the constant stream of new gold tank the market value?
Look at the gold price for the last 10 years, it’s steadily rising. We keep producing more electronics that need gold. At the same time some gold is lost because not in all tech it can be easily recycled. On top of that gold mining is becoming more expensive because a lot of easily accessible gold has been mined out.
So even if this technology could create additional gold in the future it probably won’t out scale the growing demand.
I can’t imagine it would be any different than a new gold mine opening up somewhere in the world.