[DennisP]

Other people are already developing the lasers. We have NIF-class lasers now with over 20% efficiency, compared to the <1% efficiency of NIF's lasers. We also have petawatt lasers that can fire once per second.

https://physicstoday.scitation.org/do/10.1063/pt.6.2.2021102...

[ambicapter]

Why isn't NIF using these lasers? Wouldn't bringing down the power requirements of their lasers have helped them get to "break-even" faster?

[Robotbeat]

Because they have limited money.

[DennisP]

And it's easy enough to figure out the overall ratio if they'd used newer lasers.