Using nuclear fusion – star energy – to power the world’s dishwashers, TVs and servers has long been a twinkling in the misty eyes of physicists, but it inched closer to reality this week as the American National Ignition Facility (strap line: “Bringing Star Power To Earth”) struck a deal with the UK company AWE and Oxford-based Rutherford Appleton Laboratory.

The National Ignition facility (NIF) in California – at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory – has been using lasers to force together the isotopes and create the fusion needed for the process to work. Scientists there believe they are within years of achieving the goal in the lab and project that the concept could eventually become a commercially viable energy source.

The Register: UK, US ink boffinry pact on laser fusion ‘star power’