Re: Might now be 20 years away
This is easier said than done. Each shot at the NIF if Q=1 is going to yield about 2MJ. A modern fission reactor yields about 4500MWt. If we're generous and make Q=10 for the ICF side at 20MJ a pulse you need over 200 pulses per second to get comparable output to a fission reactor. That is many orders of magnitude faster than anything anyone has even considered. It takes days to prep a NIF shot.
The massive elephant in the room is NIF really consumes hundreds of megajoules per shot. They count energy into the target, not energy to power the lasers that shoot the target.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
