The binding energy curve shows that energy can be released if two light nuclei combine to

form a single larger nucleus. This process is called nuclear fusion. The process is hindered by
the electrical repulsion that acts to prevent the two particles from getting close enough to
each other to be within range and "fusing."

To generate useful amounts of power, nuclear fusion must occur in bulk matter. That is,
many atoms need to fuse in order create a significant amount of energy. The best hope for
bringing this about is to raise the temperature of the material so that the particles have
enough energy--due to their thermal motions alone--to penetrate the electrical repulsion
barrier. This process is known as thermonuclear fusion. Calculations show that these
temperatures need to be close to the sun's temperature of 1.5 X 10 7K.

Fusion is the process by which the nuclei of light atoms (such as hydrogen) combine, or fuse,
to form heavier elements. Temperatures of around 100 000 000 degrees C are needed to
overcome the electrostatic repulsion between positively-charged nuclei and thus bring them
close enough together for fusion reactions to occur at a sufficient rate. At these
temperatures, the gas becomes a plasma (the ions and electrons form a macroscopically
neutral fluid) and obviously cannot be in contact with material walls. The fusion power plant
design based on a tokamak (the most performing device) uses magnetic fields to keep the
plasma thermally insulated from the reactor walls. The volume of plasma, in such device,
would be about 1000 m3 and the fusion energy would amount to several gigawatts.

To keep burning. As Lord Kelvin famously calculated near the end of the 19th century, the
heat generated by the gravitational collapse of the sun could only keep it as hot as it is for a
few tens of thousands of years. He thought he had shown all these geologists and
paleontologists that they were wrong with their tales of the earth being hundreds of
millions of years old. But he didn't know about fusion. Once a star "lights up" the fusion
reactions, it can stay in an essentially steady state for billions of years.