Less than meets the eye



Perhaps you've hear that fusion energy generation has achieved a net positive output. Uh, no. We are still far from that holy grail, and even farther from commercial scale-up. I'll be dead before that happens.

"The very final stage, where lasers heat up the fusion fuel, does indeed produce a net energy gain. This is known as Q, and in this example equals 1.25, which is about what we're expecting DOE to announce tomorrow.

"But the wall-to-wall energy consumption is quite different: Taken as a whole, the system is likely to produce about 1-2% of the energy initially used to charge the capacitors that drive the lasers. This is nowhere close to net energy gain."

https://jabberwocking.com/warning-the-nif-fusion-facility-didnt-really-produce-a-net-energy-gain/

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