kW isn't that high for pulsed lasers. Particularly since with Q-switching you can get very short pulses and mode-locking ridiculously short pulses. Total energy for a 1ps pulse at 100kW is negligible.

Exactly. Since the output is not continuous, the average power remains quite low. This is why you can still power it from regular domestic power :)

You get some nasty ionization effects with shorter pulses, right? I did some work trying to model a fs pulse laser in college.

Popcorn?