Richard Branson has never been afraid of big ideas, or standing outside the CW, with businesses like Virgin Galactic. It may have taken him a while to come around to the evidence of global warming, but now that he has, he is using his new-found belief to create another business based on innovation: Virgin Fuel. In a recent Interview with Business 2.0, Branson talked about his new awareness of long-term climate changes and his new enterprise to develop a super fuel -- clean burning and, he hopes, very profitable. Branson plans to invest "something like $1 billion in alternative fuels" across the board through the end of this decade. But Virgin Fuel is something else. He's cautiously mum on the details, noting only that it will be a "clean burning" but non-ethanol-base fuel, but he's not cautious about his expectations, predicting the new fuel will not only fly Virgin's jets, but also predicting the fuel "will work in cars and trucks and trains within a year." And I admit to salivating when he talks this way.

Will Virgin Fuel become the next Virgin Records, or will it become the next Virgin Brides?

(Disclosure: I have no financial interests or involvement with Virgin.)