An example to back you up: if the laser pulse was 1 nanosecond, the energy required to make the beam a 500 terawatt beam would be 500 kJ, or the energy released

An example to back you up: if the laser pulse was 1 nanosecond, the energy required to make the beam a 500 terawatt beam would be 500 kJ, or the energy released by the combustion of one gram of gasoline http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%28500e12+Watts%29+*+%281e-9+second%29 http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%28500e12+Watts%29+*+%2... *Edited because of wrong numbers