>I wonder why everyone skirts around the obvious here: the NIF's task is weapons research, and for that, fusion reactions which last nanoseconds might be enough, but there is no way this method can be scaled up so it's actually a cost-effective way of producing electricity...

We already have fusion weapons that work very well, there is some valuable data that can aid weapons design I don't believe that to be a primary goal here. Looks like they did shift to plutonium targets for a while about a decade ago focusing more on weapons research but then shifted back to trying to work toward controlled ignition for power generation.

Still a long way to go but the first step is getting more energy out then in on the main reaction without using fission bombs and destroying the device. Then figure how to scale up to get more energy out than in when considering the apparatuses efficiency, then getting more out than in when considering heat engine efficiency.