As "The End of Oil" approaches, more and more approaches toward finding and developing new, underutilized and clean sources of energy are needed. In this talk an introduction to the problem will be given followed by an introduction to one of these energy sources; fusion energy.

Fusion energy is the energy source which powers the stars and is likely to be an important component of a broad sustainable energy portfolio. However, first we need to make it a feasible controlled energy source on earth. This involves making the fusion plasmas hot enough, dense enough and confined for long enough for sustained fusion to occur. An introduction to the issues involved in fusion energy (focusing on magnetic confinement), the current state of the field and the road map for development of fusion energy will be presented. Time permitting, some of the interesting fundamental physics questions in confined plasma physics will be introduced.