The five hot baths, mentioned in the text, doesn’t consider how much energy was expended in doing that. How many more times would it need to triple in output to be better than break-even? At approx twenty five years to triple it each time, we would be waiting an awful long time for even an equivalent output to input!
Likewise the net gain for energy output, compared to input, did not consider all the energy used outside that instant in time, in order achieve that result.
That instant in time is easily calculated from the data given viz: a net gain of 1.5 megajoules in less time than it takes light to travel one inch. Light travels 186,000 miles in one second! To help you out with your calculation, there are 66,960 inches in each and every one of those 186,000 miles. That is 1.25 x 10^10 inches.
Of course, developments are obviously speeding up - but still don’t expect too much in the next 25 years.
Success would, of course, be fantastic and could occur at any time - just don’t hold your breath While waiting….!
for the fusion bit, you have to remember it is a 40 year old machine and it was still breaking records.
and for the uk it will be 20-30 years to see a machine of the same size built.
there is iter in the south of France, but they are not expecting this one to be operational untill 2030 at the earliest, and at least 2035 to even try and do a similar experiments.
there is alot of private investment into fusion but... most are on smaller reactors, and with out using DT (deuterium and tritium) as fuel.
there is little investment in the uk from the government on large experiments.
ohh and a side note JET took about 2GW to run, so 69MJ output doesnt seam as good.
ITER is a big multinational project, but it's objectives are quite modest, and though will help gain new data, it's still a long way off from being a prototype design for a viable reactor.
Over in the fission world, I see that the cost of Hinkley C has gone even further beyond the original budget (30-40% ? ) and it's well behind schedule, and that is supposed to be an established design, being the n'th one of it's kind. Also, despite ALL the talk about small modular reactors (SMR), I believe I'm right that no where in the world is there a signed contract to build one.
I see that EDF agreed with the regulators to keep 2 of the UK AGR's operating, though they were scheduled to be closed this year. I cannot recall how many AGR's are still in the fleet; is it 3 or 4? They make a valuable contribution, especially on cloudy, windless days . I used to work on AGR's so have a soft spot for them. It was a monumental mistake to stop building AGR's back in the 80's when we'd just "perfected" the design. We went on to build the (one) Sizewell PWR (US design), which I think had been successful, but it did not lead to a British PWR as intended, which is why we now have the French reactor being (slowly and expensively) built.