Swiss at the core of European fusion

Thermonuclear fusion is the base energy of the Universe, keeping the Sun and stars burning.

Conventional nuclear power works on the principle of "fission" - breaking down heavy atoms.

A fusion reactor forces atoms together to create heavier elements.

To achieve fusion, atoms have to be heated to 100 million degrees Celsius which turns them into a �soup� known as plasma.

Unlike fission, fusion reactions are said to carry no safety risks.

There is also another fusion energy process, called "cold fusion" wich is obtain via an electro-chemical reaction...

A Swiss professor based in Lausanne is to head an international project hoping to unlock the power potential of thermonuclear fusion.

swissinfo.org...

Does anybody know how they plan on generating 1,000,000C temperatures, this must surely require a huge amount of power which presumably must be generated by other means.

The technique is called ECRH-heating: Electron Cyclotron Resonance Heating. Basically you take a really big bad magnetron(It's actually a gyrotron, but that's almost the same) and dunk all its power into the plasma ;-)