[Irish Wolf]

According to Dr. Alex James, a physicist who publishes science explainers on TikTok under @popculturescientist, the NIF facility uses lasers whose design is more than 20 years out of date, because their goal was to reach ignition with laser inertial confinement rather than to produce useful power. A more modern facility might be able to get a better result, although without somewhere for the fusing plasma to be it can never become a generator in and of itself.