[Jack Simth]

Originally posted by narf poit chez BOOM:
a bunch of power-hungry mages won't want to get there hands on a new power source? gonna have to keep it a secret in that case.

Oh, they will, but there are some catches - if there are only a small handful of mages that can, the value of lead stays down and the value of gold stays up, both of which are very good financial incentives for that small handful to maintain the knoweledge as a secret. Moreover, if only a small handful know how, that handful can dominate those mages that don't reasonably easily, which grants the mages who know how power over their fellows who don't. There is as strong of incentive for the power-hungry mages to maintain it as a sectet as there is for other power-hungry mages to discover that secret - but the ones in the know have the advantage, as they have a lot more energy to play around with; unless the mindset of cooperation and information sharing is already present or becomes present, the situation would reach equilibrium with a very small number of mages knowing how to burn lead. Most likely, the knoweledge would die with that handful.

Also, there is another catch Jack hasn't mentioned, as it isn't important to him: even if the process is 99.9% efficient, there is still the matter of a waste energy release of the rough equivalent of burning 12,500 gallons of kerosene for every pound of lead converted, or the energy of about 430 pounds of TNT. Jack's immortal - he can just jump in a large body of water, do the conVersion there, and repair the burns that would normally be fatal (the water would absorb much of the energy, but the resultant steam would push away the rest for a bit; anything nearby would still be sorely burned). Those without really good healing skills and the ability to deal with a lack of air or without invulnerability to heat and radiation are going to be at a severe disadvantage when converting lead, as almost nothing could survive the inferno intact. This will sharply limit the energy most could gain by the process.