TUCKED away in an industrial park just outside Oxford is a machine that has the potential to make nuclear and gas power obsolete.

The device, labelled Machine 3, will be used to move forward with a new approach to producing fusion - a low carbon energy source extracted from water.

Behind the technology is Dr Nicholas Hawker, Professor Yiannis Ventikos and their company First Light Fusion, based at Oxford Industrial Park in Yarnton.

Dr Hawker said stability was the central struggle of all fusion reactors, with increasingly complex and expensive machines needed but that their method would make the process 'drastically' cheaper by focusing on harnessing this instability rather than seeking to eliminate it.

He added: "There is nothing else like this in the world. The pressures and velocities that we will be able to access with this machine will massively extend the development of our fusion target designs."

The £3.6m device will fire an object made from plastic, copper or aluminium at high speed to create a shockwave to collapse a cavity containing plasma inside a 'target'.

The exact details of what makes up this 'target' are a carefully guarded secret and the unique selling point of First Light Fusion's research.

Once complete Machine 3 will be capable of discharging up to 200,000 volts - the equivalent of 500 simultaneous lightning strikes achieved in 1/1000 the time of a camera flash.

Since the company was founded in 2011 the team have been working on extensive simulation modelling and have used Machine 1 and 2, both significantly smaller than the new device, to hone the technology.

Dr Hawker took his inspiration from his PHD, which he carried out at Oxford University under the supervision of Professor Venitkos.

It looked at the only example of this process found naturally on Earth - the pistol shrimp. The sea creature is able to produce a shockwave that stuns its prey, the explosion so heated and confined that it produces plasma.

The first demonstration of fusion by Machine 3 is expected to take place next year, with the mammoth achievement of obtaining 'gain' - getting more energy out than is put into the process - anticipated by 2024.

Though fusion has been achieved by other projects, none have been able to show 'gain'.

Dr Hawker said: "We're realistic that this is going to be a long process but I think fusion can replace nuclear and gas even given enough time.

"It would create a baseload of energy to work in conjunction with renewable resources like wind and solar power."

Oxfordshire has proved a fertile ground for the pioneering technology, with fusion projects also taking place at Culham Science Centre and the Harwell Campus.

Dr Hawker said:"Oxfordshire has quietly become one of the world-leading centres of fusion research and Oxford is an ideal place for recruitment due to the university. We currently employ 35 people but in the next few years we will be looking to scale up to around 200. Nothing is confirmed, but we are looking at new sites as we expand and it says something that none of them are outside Oxfordshire."