A huge milestone in modern science will be achieved if we could master controlled fusion reactions. This is the same reaction that powers the Sun, combining four Hydrogen atoms into one Helium atom, and releasing huge amounts of energy in the process. For example, a thimbleful of liquid Hydrogen fuel could produce as much energy as 20 tons of coal!! Moreover, with fossil fules (coal, petroleum) depleting at a high rate, and their mining becoming harder and more expensive, it makes sense to invest in fusion technologies.
With this in mind, a consortium of six (China, EU, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the USA) have finally decided to attempt to build a experimental fusion reactor called ITER in Cadarache in the south of France.

Tokamak Diagram (Courtesy: MIT)ITER stands for International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor. It will use magnetic fields generated by superconducting coils to confine a plasma of Deuterium and Tritium in a donut-shaped chamber called a Tokamak (short for toroidalnya kamera ee magnetnaya katushka - torus-shaped magnetic chamber, first designed by Soviet physicists Andrei Sakharov and Igor Tamm in 1951). The plasma will be heated to millions of degrees, and confined by the powerful magnets so that it does not escape. At such high temperatures, Deuterium and Tritium would overcome their mutual repulsion, and fuse to form Helium and release energy in the process.
ITER is designed to produce 500 MW of power and to demonstrate that it is feasible to generate power from fusion. Construction of ITER should start by the end of this year and should be complete by 2015. Cadarache is already home to Tore Supra, currently the world's largest superconducting tokamak, and some 500 fusion scientists, engineers and technicians, plus another 4000 staff working in other areas. The Cadarache lab, which is close to Marseille, is run by the CEA (French Atomic Energy Commission).
Hopefully, we will see practical applications of this endeavor in our lifetimes :).