Nuclear weapons testing facility produces an output thermal energy of around 1% of input electrical energy

Potentially points to net energy yield in decades if funding is continuously provided and confinement approach is changed, lags tokamaks success

The first superfluous 12 mins are skipped.

NOTES on press conference:

07:30 - "Sustained investment" - that is what this is about. Of course it is needed. But this is a dual use facility designed to understand nuclear fusion weapons as a priority, comments at the start of the panel session make that clear.

12:42 - X-Rays from the [inner] wall lead to "COP of 1.5" [laser energy to neutron proxy determined thermal energy] that lasted for less time than it takes light to travel 1 inch

19:45 - "probably decades away"

Real COP of 0.01!

21:25 - "The laser requires about 300 MJ from the wall to drive 2MJ of laser energy which drove 3MJ of fusion yield."

This is therefore a COP of around 0.01 for less time than it takes light to travel 1 inch - and to make it useful you need to then convert that back to electricity.

Comparing another thermal heat generator, Parkhomov's 225 day reactor produced a real electrical to thermal Joule COP of 1.5 (150 times greater yield "from the wall" than this announcement) for a comparative eternity.

Kladov's 1980s cavitation heat generator claims a COP of 2-7 electrical to thermal and could be run by a water wheel and gearbox. This is in line with Griggs cavitation device.

Put this NIF announcement of a COP of 0.01 for billionths of a second from a facility that is the size of multiple football pitches and requires 1000s of people where everything has to be right, against small, simple and commercially available, user install-able, rarefaction pulse heater, available in Russia and Eastern Europe, which produce an electrical to thermal COP of 1.5 all day long, every day for years maintenance free.

Difficult to repeat and fault intolerant

1:07:33 - Debris from a shot is transported back to optics of the critical lasers making repeat shots very difficult

1:08:00 - "Everything has to be right" for this to work - not very fault tolerant, even for a single shot.

Needs a fission reactor to produce fuel (or LENR)

1:09:41 - "use deuterium and tritium", so, need a fission reactor to make fuel

1:10:00 - Fusion yield is determined using the proxy of the number of neutrons produced. At least they are using a proper metal activation neutron detection method.

Use of modern lasers could see COP as high as 0.3!

1:14:19 - If modern lasers were used, rather than 80s/90s technology, the theoretical maximum COP of electrical to thermal would be 0.3, (20% efficient lasers with laser to yield COP of 1.5)

Only takes weeks to produce a pellet that lasts billionths of seconds

1:16:55 - fuel capsules from design take about 7 months, but assembly about 2 weeks for a shot that lasts a billionths of a second - oh, and you need deuterium and tritium.

96% of Deuterium/Tritium fuel is wasted

1:17:54 - "About 4% of the DT is burned in the shot"

Not practical to use this method for fusion, more funding please

1:27:38 - um er… Basically this is not a practical approach to fusion, other approaches need to be funded and then explored.

Tungsten Inclusions!

1:31:50. The [less than perfect] target that worked had "tungsten inclusions" - tip off: Alan DeAngelis

Hypothesis

Impact energy over 5eV causes true charge separation of matter with Hydrogen isotopes being 2-4000 times easier than other nuclei. Impact over 0.5eV produces cold neutrino/antineutrino pairs

All of this forms EVOs, EVOs can dishevel producing X-Rays, X-rays from EVOs can cause true charge separation of hydrogen isotopes leading to bigger EVOs.

EVOs have a fractal toroidal moment

This interacts with 183W, leading to emissions that further produce EVOs all of the above combined causes a cascade leading to macro EVO being formed (Ball Lightning) which leads to a range of reactions including fusion, fission up to destruction of baryons.

They may actually be getting a bigger yield than it appears, but they are only looking for neutrons as a proxy, so they cannot see the other forms of energy released.