The nuclear fusion breakthrough heralded on Tuesday was a historic event, culminating decades of research.
At the same time, fusion power will not be contributing electricity to any power grid for at least a decade, according to most industry watchers.
"We got out 3.15 megajoules, we put in 2.05 megajoules in the laser," said Mark Herrmann, a program director at Lawrence Livermore, on Tuesday.
All of that energy went into the laser fusion reaction that showed net gain of about 1.1 megajoules — enough energy to boil a teakettle maybe two or three times.
"This is a science achievement, not a practical one," Omar A. Hurricane, a chief scientist at Lawrence Livermore, told CNBC.