re: #507 Jimmah

With the proper effort and a little luck we can get there in very much shorter than the time scale you mention. Again, from the BBC article:

Professor Mike Dunne, who leads a European venture that is also pursuing nuclear fusion with lasers, told BBC News that if NIF was successful, it would be a “seismic event”.

“It would mark the transition for laser fusion from ‘physics’ to ‘engineering reality’,” he said.

Lets hope this experiment is successful…

Amen. Controlled fusion would solve everything energy wise - and be very very green to boot.