only losing 30%(or more or less) of the applied power seems to be part of the expected pattern when bragging about fusion progress
Well it's actually a lot worse than that suggests. The key deceptive bit was '...of the laser energy delivered to the fuel capsule.' Let's make the unrealistic assumption an impossible 100% of laser energy was delivered. What's missing? For starters, net laser efficiency itself. The actual conversion efficiency of original input energy to output UV laser energy is less than 1%.
Just that factor alone means the rosy sounding '70% of 'ignition' level is really less than 0.7% of nominal input energy. See last para here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Ignition_Facility#NIF_and_ICF
"These output energies are still less than the 422 MJ of input energy required to charge the system's capacitors that power the laser amplifiers. The net wall-plug efficiency of NIF (UV laser energy out divided by the energy required to pump the lasers from an external source)
would be less than one percent, and the total wall-to-fusion efficiency is under 10% at its maximum performance. An economical fusion reactor would require that the fusion output be at least an order of magnitude more than this input. Commercial laser fusion systems would use the much more efficient diode-pumped solid state lasers, where wall-plug efficiencies of 10 percent have been demonstrated, and efficiencies 16-18 percent are expected with advanced concepts under development.[28]"
And why have these far more efficient lasers not been long substituted? Perhaps because they are plagued with stability issues etc? Even with such an improvement, the odds still look very long overall.
What else? How about the thorny issue of how to capture and efficiently convert the 'over in a nanosecond' mini-nuke explosion? Collection by whatever physical means has to not obstruct the very evenly spaced spherical array of 192 input laser beams. Nor foul the delicate laser optics system. I would be surprised if the already less than 0.7% net burn efficiency of current 'breakthrough' result could be converted to useful electricity at more than around 10% or so efficiency. There is then further significant losses incurred in needing to recycle sufficient of that useful electrical collected energy back into the lasers driving ignition. Themselves a very complex and multi-staged system.
Is this all looking good so far? Don't think so!
What else? Well it turns out the extraordinarily complex and delicate massive NIF facility has a certain 'throughput problem' to put it mildly. Last para here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Ignition_Facility#Driver_laser
"One important aspect of any ICF research project is ensuring that experiments can actually be carried out on a timely basis. Previous devices generally had to cool down for many hours to allow the flashlamps and laser glass to regain their shapes after firing (due to thermal expansion), limiting use to one or fewer firings a day. One of the
goals for NIF
is to reduce this time to less than four hours, in order to allow 700 firings a year.[22]"
Ha ha ha ha. Saying no more there.
Misleading hype is nothing new when it comes to the NIF saga. Check out the following:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Ignition_Facility#Breakeven_claims
Perhaps most significant is the final para of introductory section:
"Bringing the system to its full potential was a lengthy process that was carried out from 2009 to 2012. During this period a number of experiments were worked into the process under the National Ignition Campaign, with the goal of reaching ignition just after the laser reached full power, some time in the second half of 2012. The Campaign officially ended in September 2012, at about 1⁄10 the conditions needed for ignition.[7] Experiments since then have pushed this closer to 1⁄3, but considerable theoretical and practical work is required if the system is ever to reach ignition.[8] Since 2012, NIF has been used primarily for materials science
and weapons research."
I recall coming across the latter aspect quite some years back. The whisper then being the true goal all along was using NIF as a test-bed for developing 'pure fusion nukes' i.e eliminating fission triggering. That in turn would mean 'clean nukes' which in turn would basically erode the barrier to their use as tactical weapons since fallout would ostensibly no longer be a political issue. And notionally they could be made to operate over a much larger yield size range.
Thankfully maybe, that is also looking like remaining a pipe dream given the poor results from humongous efforts so far expended.
