According to Gordon Pusch, a physicist at Argonne National Laboratory, various breakeven calculations on muon-catalyzed fusion omit the heat energy the muon beam itself deposits in the target. By taking this factor into account, muon-catalyzed fusion can already exceed breakeven; however, the recirculated power is usually very large compared to power out to the electrical grid (about 3–5 times as large, according to estimates). Despite this rather high recirculated power, the overall cycle efficiency is comparable to conventional fission reactors; however the need for 4–6 MW electrical generating capacity for each megawatt out to the grid probably represents an unacceptably large capital investment. Pusch suggested using Bogdan Maglich's "migma" self-colliding beam concept to significantly increase the muon production efficiency, by eliminating target losses, and using tritium nuclei as the driver beam, to optimize the number of negative muons.
In 2021, Kelly, Hart and Rose  produced a μCF model whereby the ratio, Q, of thermal energy produced to the kinetic energy of the accelerated deuterons used to create negative pions (and thus negative muons through pion decay) was optimized. In this model, the heat energy of the incoming deuterons as well as that of the particles produced due to the deuteron beam impacting a tungsten target was recaptured to the extent possible, as suggested by Gordon Pusch in the previous paragraph. Additionally, heat energy due to tritium breeding in a lithium-lead shell was recaptured, as suggested by Jändel, Danos and Rafelski in 1988. The best Q value was found to be about 130% assuming that 50% of the muons produced were actually utilized for fusion catalysis. Furthermore, assuming that the accelerator was 18% efficient at transforming electrical energy into deuteron kinetic energy and conversion efficiency of heat energy into electrical energy of 60%, they estimate that, currently, the amount of electrical energy that could be produced by a μCF reactor would be 14% of the electrical energy consumed. In order for this to improve, they suggest that some combination of a) increasing accelerator efficiency and b) increasing the number of fusion reactions per negative muon above the assumed level of 150 would be needed.