I think the suggestion is that the fusion is achieved only around the tiny pellet, and that the fusion acts against the magnetic containment to actually propel the pellet out the back. That's my guess - which slightly beats the idea they have achieved sustainable net positive energy fusion but cannot be bothered to solve all the worlds energy problems and become trillionaires.

If this idea had been reduced to practice, it would mean the end of the National Ignition Facility, which after decades of effort, has yet to produce more power than is required to start the reaction:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Ignition_Facility

If the described method actually worked, it would force a complete reevaluation of the other approaches to fusion, none of which have actually worked (in a practical sense) after decades of effort.

That's why I doubt that the described method has moved beyond the theoretical phase. If this isn't true, then people would try to create a continuous-power version of the technology, in which prior energy releases and high temperatures would be used to sustain new fusion energy releases.

I've been reading about fusion power research for decades, I know the problems, and I remain skeptical.

It's actually surprisingly difficult to capture the heat energy.

The energy is released as neutrons, neutrinos and gamma rays, all of which tend to escape rather than heat the surrounding area.

But all of them are magnetically neutral, so I wonder how they propose to capture their momentum.