[InterceptPoint]

The last time I checked in on progress in fusion technology, which was many years ago, the big goal was constraining a very hot plasma in order to extract energy from the fusion process.

This looks different.

Is it?

[Red Badger]

That is the ‘Tokamak’ process, and it is very different than this method..................

[Red Badger]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokamak

[Wonder Warthog]

Inertial confinement fusion, rather than "contained-plasma" (tokamak, Bussard Polywell, etc.). They're trying to do on a small scale what happens in a fusion bomb, only instead of triggering a fission bomb around a container of (insert your favorite fusion mix here) to get it compressed, they are focussing the energy of many, many, many laser beams onto a very small target that contains (insert your favorite fusion mix here).

The outer shell of the target explodes outward (and inward) under the impact of the lasers. The inward compression wave increases the temperature and pressure to above the fusion threshold. Fusion happens, and the innards of the small pellet now explode outwards, yielding excess energy.

NOT a practical route to routine energy production.

[CodeToad]

The amount of energy needed to contain a fusion reaction must be derived from the reaction itself. That is the next step they have not engineered. The containment for reactions today require outside power and we cannot generate enough energy to contain a fusion reaction but for a brief moment.

[Moonman62]

The last time I checked in on progress in fusion technology, which was many years ago, the big goal was constraining a very hot plasma in order to extract energy from the fusion process. This looks different. Is it?

The NIF does nuclear weapons research. These stories coming from them about power production are dishonest.