Fission is the splitting apart of heavy nuclei. Electron beams are sent into a nucleus of uranium, for example, and the nucleus splits releasing large amounts of energy.
Fusion is just the opposite, light atoms are joined to form a heavier one.
Magnetic confinement involves holding a sufficiently hot, dense plasma with powerful electromagnetic forces, so that fusion can occur, but over a suitably long time. Inertial confinement is when a powerful beam is used to hit a small pellet of fuel for a fraction of a second which heats and compresses the fuel until fusion occurs. These beams can be produced by either laser or electron beam generators. Such is being done in Los Alamos , Livermore , and Sandia Laboritories . You might be wondering how much energy can be obtained from fission or fusion.