>Transmute trash to gold
Not only is that ridiculous but it's also impossible seeing as gold is an element. Unless the trash has a compound with gold in it you ain't gonna be transmuting stuff.
Have you been paying attention to the thread? We're not purifying the trash. We're basically exploding the atoms which is converted to a butt-ton of energy (we would need some kind of colossal battery, otherwise it could wipe the country off the map) which we then condense back into gold, by some kind of template or something.
Who cares for the gold
What we need is energy
I was using an example. Of course we wouldn't need the gold because gold would no longer be expensive because it would be worth the same as ANYTHING with the same weight.
Oh, and things like looking for coal and ore, refining wood, pulverizing paper, ect. would be pretty pointless, since you can just use regular stone.