SPEAKING OF MALTHUSIANS...:

Nuclear fusion energy project could lead to limitless clean electricity (Richard Gray, 05/10/2008, BBC)

The power of the sun is to be recreated in a new £1 billion science project which aims to provide a clean and almost limitless source of energy.

British scientists will this week begin work to create a nuclear fusion reactor, which will use the same powerful reactions that take place in the Sun to provide energy and, ultimately, electricity. [...]

Laser beams with enough power to light up every home in Britain for a few microseconds will be used to heat up the nuclear fuel to millions of degrees centigrade in order to trigger the reaction.

If successful, the reactor will be a prototype for future commercial power stations, providing a cleaner and safer replacement for conventional nuclear power stations, which use nuclear fission to produce energy