# What is the most expencive substance on Earth?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-expencive-substance-on-earth/174260>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [May 10, 2003, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-expencive-substance-on-earth/174260 "2003-05-10T03:15:53Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 3

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**Author:** ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)\
**Post date:** [May 11, 2003, 6:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-expencive-substance-on-earth/174260/41 "2003-05-11T06:07:05Z")

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Say, if we _did_ have a way of producing antimatter cheaply, and in usable quantities (I don’t know how…maybe if we stuck a Wizard or an Elf in a food processor), how would you go about making a power planet fueled by it? Just a standard steam “boiler,” the furnace of which gets a few molecules of matter/antimatter reacting per second, or would it have to be something “exotic”?  
Ranchoth  
(“Remember, hook the RED jumper cable clip to the antihydrogen, and the BLACK clip to the Deuterium…”)

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**Author:** ![Shalmanese](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shalmanese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shalmanese)\
**Post date:** [May 11, 2003, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-expencive-substance-on-earth/174260/42 "2003-05-11T14:46:57Z")

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The energy produced from an AM-M annihaliation would be primarily very high energy gamma rays. How you would harness it… I imagine you would need a very good gamma absorber of some sort which would het up rather quickly due to the bombardment.

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