Michelle Makori of Miles Franklin Media interviewed Lobo Tiggre, founder of IndependentSpeculator.com, about Marathon Fusion’s claim that nuclear fusion could one day transmute mercury into stable gold. The company proposes using high energy neutrons from fusion reactors to bombard mercury 198, converting it into unstable mercury 197 that decays into gold 197. A research paper based on computer simulations suggested a large reactor might produce around 2 metric tons of gold per gigawatt of thermal power each year.
Tiggre immediately placed the idea in context. “You’re going to make extraordinary claims. You need extraordinary evidence. And what we’ve got is a YouTube video.” Fusion energy has been “five years away” for his entire career, and commercial reactors do not yet exist.
He acknowledged that scientists have previously created tiny amounts of gold through nuclear transmutation, including work at CERN, but stressed the gulf between a proof of concept and industrial scale. “Even if the experiment shows the production of a stable non radioactive gold atom or two, is that even possible to scale beyond the benchtop to go from an experiment to commercial distribution of a viable technology? It is a huge huge undertaking and in some cases it’s not even possible. The science doesn’t scale itself.”
Mercury isotope supply, cost, and the production of radioactive material that could require years of storage before the gold is safe add further barriers. Scaling, he said, would take decades. “For an investor today, this is a complete non issue. This makes zero difference to my investments right now. The odds are slim to none and Slim’s out of town.”
Tiggre compared the situation to a golden asteroid: theoretically interesting, but irrelevant to current portfolio decisions. Scarcity in gold is as much psychology as geology. He noted that diamonds lost some mystique once lab grown versions became common, yet gold’s monetary role rests on far more than pure physical rarity. The discussion also touched the gold versus Bitcoin debate over scarcity and fiat debasement, plus near term risks from Federal Reserve policy and geopolitics.
Tiggre highlighted the 4,000 dollar level as potentially important for gold’s next major move and argued that any further correction would create significant buying opportunities in gold and silver mining stocks.
These remarks connect directly to Tiggre’s appearance on the SilverTrade Insider several months earlier. In that July interview he had already sold his mining stocks after the sharp vertical move, moved largely to cash, and warned that continued weakness could produce a selloff worse than 1980. He emphasized he had not sold a single ounce of physical bullion, treating metal as savings rather than a trading vehicle.
(Lobo’s Insider appearance in which he predicted the current price weakness in gold and silver over the past 2 months can be seen here🙂
The fusion discussion reinforces the same patient, evidence based stance: ignore distant technological hype while remaining alert to nearer term price corrections that could offer fresh entry points in the mining equities he still follows closely.
