Modern Alchemy
The Marathon Fusion team joins Cameron Wiese at their San Francisco lab to talk about bringing the power of the stars down to Earth, for abundant clean energy and the ability to turn one element into another.
Modern Alchemy
Fusion is the reaction that powers the stars. Marathon Fusion is building the technology a fusion power plant needs to run, starting with its fuel: the systems that capture, clean, and recycle tritium so a plant can keep making its own.
In a fusion power plant, a blanket wraps the plasma and catches the neutrons it gives off. The team walked us through how that blanket can do three jobs at once: make electricity, make new fuel, and a secret third thing. In 2025, Marathon proposed that the same neutrons could turn mercury into gold, modern alchemy.
The evening included talks, a tour of the lab, and demos.
This conversation was recorded live at a World’s Fair Co. Pioneers evening at Marathon Fusion in San Francisco on November 5, 2026. To hear about the next one, join the mailing list below.
Links & references
Thank you to the Marathon Fusion team for opening their lab to us, and to everyone who came out.