Fusion power is attracting private-sector interest

IN 1920 Arthur Eddington, an English astrophysicist, gave a lecture to the British Association for the Advancement of Science on the internal structure of stars. In it, he hypothesised that what makes the sun shine--then a matter of much debate--was some sort of nuclear reaction. "This reservoir", he said, "can scarcely be other than the subatomic energy which, it is known, exists abundantly in all matter; we sometimes dream that man will one day learn how to release it and use it for his servic...