Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-1477036-20130529030726/@comment-67.163.247.140-20140605062121

I do not believe that the Tesseract is an element, especially one that is "known" about other than in existence which is why SHIELD and NASA were doing all the research on it. So when Fury says that he knows of an element Tony hasn't tried I would think its Vibranium. As far as the idea it is what powers the new reactors I am somewhat unsure for opposing reasons.

First he replied to Rhodey in IM2 that the smoking Palladium was caused by the reactors wall. Vibranium could in theory repel the Neutrons in the reactors wall leaving it undamaged and causing a greater power increase so it really could be the element he created. Also in the Avengers when Loki tries to use his staff on Tony the energy seems to get channeled then dissipate (the same look as when Thor hits Caps Shield) meaning the energy was repelled.

However though by the end of IM3 you have 44+ (42 Armors, 1 War Machine and atleast his chest reactor if not more spare) new "vibranium" reactors. Even though you only need this small triangle of it to power the reactor he still would have created quite a bit of the material and still be able to create a lot more. This would pretty much eliminate any need for mining in Wakanda which could however be intentional by the movie producers as a way to shortcut around a Black Panther movie.