How can I format my primary HD and reinstall Lion?

So my iMac has been running very slowly lately, and I've had some tech issues (see the fruitless help thread at http://hintsforums.macworld.com/showthread.php?p=634569), so I'm tempted to just wipe my hard drive clean and reinstall Lion.
I have a backup HD, so I should have sufficient hardware to do this. I just have a couple questions about the mechanics:
1. How do I format my primary hard drive? I assume this is straightforward.
2. Is it possible to reinstall Lion without an install CD? I downloaded Lion off the App Store, and I'd hate to think that because of that I'm stuck with the installation I have.
Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks!

OS X Lion: About Lion Recovery
Summary
OS X Lion includes a new feature called Lion Recovery that includes all of the tools you need to reinstall Lion, repair your disk, and even restore from a Time Machine backup without the need for optical discs.
And buried in the link is also this:
the storage device to use the GUID partition scheme and the Mac OS Extended (Journaled) format, which are required to install Lion
Formating a disk is done with Disk Utility.
Regards,
Colin R.

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How can I format my primary HD and reinstall Lion?

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