> Plenty of other obstacles remain than those noted above, too. Current calculations compare energy generated against the NIF laser’s output, but that brushes over the fact that the lasers draw more than 100 times the power from the grid than any fusion reaction yields. That means either energy gains or laser efficiency would need to improve by two orders of magnitude to break even in any practical sense. The NIF’s fuel pellets are also extremely expensive, says Kritcher, each one pricing in at an estimated $100,000. Then, producing a reasonable amount of power would mean dramatically increasing the frequency of NIF’s shots — a feat barely on the horizon for a reactor that requires months to load up the next nanosecond-long burst.
"months to load up" is even a euphemism - IIRC they have to repair parts of the lasers which are so overpowered that they damage their guidance optics with each blast. So the cost for one shot is even higher than the $100,000 for the fuel pellet and the cost of the energy consumed by the lasers. I wonder why everyone skirts around the obvious here: the NIF's task is weapons research, and for that, fusion reactions which last nanoseconds might be enough, but there is no way this method can be scaled up so it's actually a cost-effective way of producing electricity...
"months to load up" is even a euphemism - IIRC they have to repair parts of the lasers which are so overpowered that they damage their guidance optics with each blast. So the cost for one shot is even higher than the $100,000 for the fuel pellet and the cost of the energy consumed by the lasers. I wonder why everyone skirts around the obvious here: the NIF's task is weapons research, and for that, fusion reactions which last nanoseconds might be enough, but there is no way this method can be scaled up so it's actually a cost-effective way of producing electricity...