Free Energy? I Doubt It

What was this nonsense 'announcement', the other day, implying some huge step in fusion happened?  The DOE speech was all about Biden and giving money to the lab that allegedly did it.  Sounded like someone was seriously fishing.

Firstly, if this 'breakthrough' occurred, it would've been rumored for months, if not years, before being announced.  Why?  Because all the graduate students talk.  It takes a LONG time to prove your results came from what you purport.  This would've leaked all over the internet, by now.

It sounds like all that happened was an experiment with lasers, that has been failing every time it's been attempted longer than I've been alive, finally yielded a result that could be interpreted as a success.  No replication of the results were reported.  None of the scientists involved were even present at this announcement... just a bunch of jabbering bureaucrats.

Don't get me wrong... if some sort of parsimony-defying energy source is discovered, it will make energy far cheaper and plentiful.  They claimed more energy was produced than expended.  That's a far-fetched claim.  Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.  I'm afraid the assessment of one experiment doesn't confirm the extraordinary.  I would love to believe it, but more than politically-motivated talking heads are required.

They even admitted they haven't replicated it.  "Concerted effort and investment, a few decades of research" are required before anything can be done with this, according to one of them.  "This is one igniting capsule, one time and to realize commercial fusion energy you have to do many things; you have to be able to produce many, many fusion ignition events per minute."    

Well, until 'many, many' happens, I'm going to remain skeptical.