Grok:
The basic nuclear reactions (simplified)Lead has 82 protons. Gold has 79 protons.
So you have to remove 3 protons (and usually some neutrons) from the nucleus.Possible reactions (all require a particle accelerator or nuclear reactor):Pb-208 + high-energy protons → fragments → Au-197 + lots of other junk
Bi-209 (p, 4p + 8n) → Au-197 (the 1980 experiment used heavy ions on bismuth instead)Why it will never be economicalItem
Approximate numbers (2025)
Energy to produce 1 gram of gold
10⁸–10¹⁰ kWh (hundreds of millions to tens of billions)
Cost of that electricity
$10–100 million (at industrial rates)
Value of 1 gram of gold
≈ $85
Ratio (cost ÷ value)
100,000× to 1,000,000,000× worse than mining
Amount actually produced in labs
< 0.000000000001 grams (a few thousand atoms)
Even if you used a future fusion reactor with “free” energy, the accelerator itself, the target material, the shielding, and the chemical separation of the microscopic gold from tons of radioactive waste would still cost far more than just digging gold out of the ground.
Bottom line Yes – lead → gold via nuclear transmutation is real physics and has been done.
No – it will never, ever be a way to make money. It is the ultimate proof that modern physics can do alchemy, but modern economics still wins.
The only people who have ever turned “lead into gold” in the 20th–21st century did it to say “we did it”, not to get rich.
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I read the other day that it's now possible to turn lead into gold, via nuclear ... [more]