Comment by rob74

Still unconvinced why this is such a major breakthrough - it may be the first net-positive controlled fusion, but the distinction between controlled and uncontrolled fusion is a bit academic in this case. In uncontrolled fusion (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermonuclear_weapon), you are using a nuclear fission primary stage to generate enough energy to start the fusion reaction in the secondary stage. In the NIF, you are using lasers (that have to be aligned to trillionths of a meter and damage their own guiding optics everytime they fire) to start the fusion reaction in a smaller pellet (that costs hundreds of thousands of dollars). So the only real difference between the first and the second case is that the H-bomb is smaller, much more expensive per amount of energy released, and explodes inside a chamber. And it's obvious to pretty much everyone who is paying attention that transforming this setup into a working and cost-effective fusion power plant is a very tall order. Also, what somehow always gets left out of these articles is that the NIF is a military facility financed from the "(Nuclear) Stockpile Stewardship" budget. So its primary objective is studying fusion in a controlled way, but for building better bombs (and retaining the expertise necessary to build them), not for energy production.