Sorry I should have said “ICF”: inertial confinement fusion. IEC is inertial electrostatic confinement. It’s a confusing set of acronyms that are easy to fumb

Sorry I should have said “ICF”: inertial confinement fusion. IEC is inertial electrostatic confinement. It’s a confusing set of acronyms that are easy to fumble. NIF has always been a weapons project. It was made to step around test ban treaties. That’s how it was bankrolled. It’s time on energy research is up and its current primary objective is to keep a team of nuclear weapons experts sharp. The next largest ICF machine is tiny by comparison. I don’t generalize “all ICF machines”, but NIF is the representative of the technology, similar to W7-X for stellarators and ITER for tokamaks.