Except that #1 is basically wrong. The way I read this is, fusion power is STILL 30-50 years away, but at least the well-paid LLNL nerds got NIF to work, a dec

Except that #1 is basically wrong. The way I read this is, fusion power is STILL 30-50 years away, but at least the well-paid LLNL nerds got NIF to work, a decade late. It was a decade of defeating plasma instabilities with target redesign. What I am somewhat dismayed about is I question whether this tweaking is applicable, in any way, to a practical method of fusion power generation. The results, I believe, are still highly chaotic, with duds intermixed with terrific shots, indicating only partial success in taming the instabilities that lead to the fizzles. But the only way inertial confinement fusion has any real applicability to power generation is if there is another order of magnitude of yield hiding behind the taming of those instabilities.