The issue is the NIF isn't trying to study power generation, their mission is determining the health of our weapons stockpile. This experiment is a lab where th

The issue is the NIF isn't trying to study power generation, their mission is determining the health of our weapons stockpile. This experiment is a lab where they can test different casings and different hydrogen mixtures and this probably feeds real-world data into their supercomputer models. All this to determine how a 50 year old h-bomb would operate now. They also can find out how they can improve them without being able to go to Nevada and detonate one underground.