> The article linked says the laser energy is 2 MJ. So even a 100% efficient laser would only have a 2x gain. And some quick googling gets me 80-90% as max feasible laser efficiency.
This doesn't sound right to me. The NIF's laser efficiency is less than 1%, so an 80% efficiency laser would be ~100x gain.
Edit: Actually, I'm not positive I'm reading this right. It says the laser was less than 1% efficient in 1996, there may have been upgrades since then...
The point is that the fusion reaction has produced 2x the power that the laser fed into it. So a 100% efficient laser (which is not physically possible) that injected 2MJ of power into the pellet would mean a net 4MJ of generated fusion energy. Then, you need some way to turn that energy into electricity, for which no realistic design exists in the case of ICF, so you'll lose more power.
This doesn't sound right to me. The NIF's laser efficiency is less than 1%, so an 80% efficiency laser would be ~100x gain.
Edit: Actually, I'm not positive I'm reading this right. It says the laser was less than 1% efficient in 1996, there may have been upgrades since then...
Edit 2: There has not been.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Ignition_Facility#:~:....