DocNappers

My point though is that heavier elements are not a by-product, but rather something that you need to deliberately manufacture, which means that you don't necessarily have an overabundance of them as it then becomes an issue of economics and supply and demand (even if they are easier to produce than by current standards), and this is the sort of thing Brandon is usually careful about having in-world explanations for (i.e., having the heavier elements as by-products essentially contradicts his third law of magic by introducing new magic physics unnecessarily, whereas adding a one-liner explanation for easily manufacturing it wouldn't).

Fair enough. I thought it just seemed odd considering that this is the sort of thing he usually gives reasonable in-world explanations for other than just outright stating that it happens.

So, I've just got up to the point where they mention that their fusion reactors produce gold as a by-product. I'm wondering if Brandon is aware that fusion reactions stop producing net energy once you reach iron (this is what triggers core collapse supernovas). In order to produce gold you'd need to be dumping a huge amount of energy into the reactor to progressively form the elements heavier than iron, so for each gold producing fusion reactor, you'd need a significant number of hydrogen fusion reactors dedicated to powering it (I haven't run the numbers, but I suspect that it's at least an order of magnitude more). So while it would be possible to generate the rarer elements this way, it wouldn't automatically lead to an over abundance of these elements without some other societal incentive for doing so.