I thought one of the statements in the article was especially interesting:<p><i>"NIF isn't truly about energy," Seife writes in his book. "It is not about keeping our stockpile safe, at least not directly. It is about keeping the United States' weapons community going in the absence of nuclear tests."</i><p>That's obviously a pretty pessimistic point of view, but when I consider the details of the test, including the immense amount of energy required to fire the lasers ten times a second, as would be required to start it according to the article, I don't see how it would be possible to get that much power back out, at least not using the traditional water to steam technique.