[jcarreiro]

Because they are researching inertial confinement fusion, not trying to build a working power plant. The efficiency of the lasers doesn't matter, since it doesn't affect their research.

[Aeolun]

Is energy on the order of 300MJ so cheap? You’d think that cutting it down to 150MJ would allow them to do more experiments.

[kragen]

300 megajoules is 83 kilowatt hours

a typical power price at trading hubs is US$40 per megawatt hour, though this varies considerably depending on many factors and is sometimes actually negative

a typical retail price is US$120 per megawatt hour

so this is about US$10 worth of electrical energy

[nrki]

300MJ ~= 83kWh which is like, $2000 in CA