How could dragons produce the energy needed to sustain themselves from gold

I'm currently contemplating ways to make dragons have a sustainable energy source in a medieval world, while still acting like the traditional soaring, adventurer grabbing, gold hoarding dragons (not necessarily with fire breath). One of those ways I thought of was Gold.

Is there a biological way to use gold as some form of energy for a otherwise purely biological creature, and how effective would it be? This would mean that there is a way to use gold somewhere along a reaction chain to fuel the creation ATP or maybe some other less traditional biological energy source.

You can assume that other essential nutrients will still be taken in by the dragon.

A bit of reference for these dragons: They are based off of Dwarf Fortress' dragons They grow to be about 25,000,000 cm³, and a body model capable of flight, they do not breath fire, however.

If gold is sadly not usable as a fuel, instead explain how it could be used as a biological catalyst, it's a perfectly acceptable answer as well. (Thanks for pointing this out, John)

posted over 5 years ago

moonheart08‭

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