The concepts are not wrong, but the explanation is quite simple.
Nuclear atoms are made of particles, called the protons and neutrons, which of each are connected to one another by an interaction: strong nuclear force.
Physics trivia: There are 4 known and fundamental interactions in nature: gravity, electromagnetic, strong nuclear and electro weak (or nuclear weak). At human scale we have only the empiric knowledge of electromagnetic (keeps electrons around the nuclei, keeps molecules near each other, etc) and the gravitical (keeps us with our feet on the ground); the other 2 interact only on quantum level.
When one manage to put protons and neutrons together, they will glue to each other forming a nuclei. The energy of that binding is enormous (that's way it's called strong nuclear interaction).
Now, there are to processes for us to retrieve energy from nuclear processes: for elements lighter than Iron (Fe) when you glue protons and neutrons it's released energy, since the overall binding energy (per neutron/proton) increases; on the other hand, for elements heavier than Iron (Fe) you most HAD energy to bind extra protons and/or neutrons so you can't extract energy since the energy binding decreases, BUT if you break a heavy nuclei apart you will retrieve energy from the binding energy difference.
The first process is called nuclear fusion, it's the process in which the stars do their energy and it has been impossible to reproduce on earth in a controlled manner with a good output (energy gain >1), but it might happen at
http://www.iter.org/.
The second process is called nuclear fission, and it's the normal nuclear processes which we already use at nuclear power plants and stuff (like bombs, although the H-Bomb is a fusion bomb, never released yet...).
The heavy elements appear in nature due to supernova, i.e., the stars don't produce heavier elements since it is not energetically positive, but when a star collapses there is an huge amount of energy that get's all the star's material at high energies and pressures and the heavier elements appear.
The article quoted in this thread talks about the hypotheses of doing nuclear fusion at "cold" temperatures through laser pressure (ITER that I've linked will try to do "hot" fusion), but cold fusion is already being considered not doable for energy production by scientists and that's not a really option right now.
