Microsoft chooses the nuclear option

Software giant throws it weight behind experimental energy plan

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Microsoft has often made big, expensive bets on almost certainly doomed ideas. From challenging the almighty iPod with the Zune, to trying to muscle Windows Mobile into a market that had been reshaped by Apple and Android, the gambles don't always pay off.

Now Microsoft has decided to pour money into perhaps the most historically doomed venture of all: fusion energy.

Fusion is, in essence, a highly speculative form of nuclear power. Unlike the power plants we have today based on nuclear fission-splitting the atom-the idea behind fusion is that it's conceivably possible to capture the huge amounts of energy released when atoms fuse together.