BRITISH scientists have drawn up plans to build the world's first nuclear fusion power station. They say it could be pouring electricity into the National Grid within 20 years.
Nuclear fusion, the power that lies at the heart of the sun, offers the prospect of clean, safe, carbon-free power with a minimum of radioactive waste. But despite decades of research the technical problems have seemed insurmountable.
This weekend, however, Research Councils UK (RCUK), which oversees the British government's spending on science and technology, has said it believes that many of those obstacles are close to being overcome.
It wants to commit Britain to a 20-year research and construction plan that would see a fusion power station in operation around 2030. Didcot in Oxfordshire is among