I'm curious - given that this is the first time we have ever done this (even with the constrained definition as discussed in this article), how there can be a '"usual caveat" about all of the "got more energy out than we put in" stories'?
AFAICT, this is the first such "story" to have ever happened artificially in history.
Because people like to shit on fusion, sometimes understandably so, after decades of over-promising and under-delivering. It's annoying and tiring, but there we have it.
Yes, it's true that in this case we didn't actually "get more energy out than we put in" when considering the full closed system, but the point of this research was to see if they could get more energy out of the reaction itself than was put into it by the lasers themselves. Presumably the next step is to see how far they can push this, still without bothering to think about the energy needed to power the lasers themselves, because, again, that is not the purpose of this research. There are other people working on making lasers more efficient, and the overall project will benefit from that research (and so will the NIF, if they decide it's worthwhile to upgrade their 90s-era lasers to something modern).
I think a lot of people here are having knee-jerk reactions and didn't read the article where they very clearly explain the caveat and what the researchers actually did.
Because all the interest of these stories is in fusion as a source of energy, and there's a long history of declaring we're near to break-even by leaving the most energy intensive part of the apparatus out of the equation.
With no disrespect to the researchers in this experiment, it's not like we're surprised that fusion works or that a pellet can generate more power than is put in.
I'm curious - given that this is the first time we have ever done this (even with the constrained definition as discussed in this article), how there can be a '"usual caveat" about all of the "got more energy out than we put in" stories'?
AFAICT, this is the first such "story" to have ever happened artificially in history.