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NIF is falling behind?

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By scooby

 From an anonymous contributor:

Is NIF falling behind more promising fusion technologies?


In 2012, NIF failed to reach ignition and the “LIFE” program was mothballed. In 2026, NIF “still consumes significantly more energy than it produces, indicating that practical, commercial fusion power is still a long way”.

TAE Technologies is doing aneutronic fusion research that may cost 10x LESS per GW than a post NIF fusion power plant, and do so with significantly reduced neutron radiation damage lowering reactor maintenance.

If the NNSA brings back underground nuclear testing at NTS in 2026, will funding for NIF increase, decrease, or be unaffected?

Comments

Anonymous said…
I think the next step will be to get AI to design targets and shots.
1/28/2026 9:24 PM
Anonymous said…
When NIF finally made the breakthrough of getting more out than in, there were a few presentations, notably the one where they had the SCIENTISTS of the project state that the purpose of NIF is WEAPON SIMULATION. They pointed out the design was never going to be practical for being a commercial fusion reactor. But you had the likes of Diane Feinstein publicly stating that she would support a project for fusion research, but not weapons. So in effect, to get the funding from the politicians, they pushed the "we are going to learn fusion stuff" and implied it would be the holy grail. Ed Moses was a snake oil salesman for that.

NIF was NEVER and is NEVER going to be a machine that will get you to a commercial reactor. It was designed to get data that we could no longer obtain due to the freeze in testing.

Would resumed testing affect NIF, I assume it would. Do I think we will resume testing - probably not. NIF and the computer simulations are the only games in town at the moment.
1/28/2026 9:36 PM
Anonymous said…
LIFE was always BS, and simply propaganda for NIF. It was patently ridiculous from the jump. There is no engineered path for fusion power from this concept. It was completely unworkable, whether it is the laser efficiency, or the targets, or the ability to repeat high-yield shots at a high rate. Then you get to the issues around turning any of that into electricity if successful. Too many hugely difficult engineering-physics issues in the way of success.
1/29/2026 5:47 AM
Anonymous said…
“We’ve progressed by three orders of magnitude and only have two more to go!”, or, “We’re 30 years, and $10B into this mess and are about 1% toward our goal.” You choose.
1/30/2026 10:54 AM
Anonymous said…
I would suspect that AI could make NIF an energy supplier for the bay area in the next 2 years. If AI builds a new NIF or NIF2 in 5 years it could easily power SF by 2035. In other words we should not even show up to work as AI and AI robots can do what any human can do 100-10000 times faster in a few years.
1/30/2026 2:38 PM
Anonymous said…
Sunk costs will keep NIF funded unless and until the NNSA redefines the markers of its success and the time it takes to reach them.
2/01/2026 7:46 AM
Anonymous said…
Can say the LEOS division lead is corrupt and unethical, so not very surprised.
2/07/2026 1:43 PM
Anonymous said…
Corrupt and unethical? How so?

That area of LLNL has a reputation for treating people like crap. Tragically, one employee there ended up running over himself and dying after receiving the news of being abruptly pushed out of his job. Others have committed suicide. None of which ever prompting a leadership performance course correction. Just a circling of the wagons every time.
2/09/2026 6:37 AM
Anonymous said…
At LLNL the management both NIF and the Engineering services sub groups have a competition on who can beat down their employees and promote idiocracy. The new era at the lab has accelerated that mission giving cash awards to folks who didn’t work on a project and giving retention bonuses to people who were sitting at home during COVID playing games.
2/11/2026 6:29 PM
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