The Next Big Branson Idea: Virgin Fuel

Sir Richard Branson has his fingers in all sorts of interesting pies. Some ideas worked out (like Virgin Atlantic Airways -- he's talked about a new fuel for them before) and some fell flat (like Virgin Cola and Virgin Brides), but he's always working on the next big thing, and he thinks he may have found it. With airlines, express trains, and limousine services, his company's contribution to global warming worries him, so along with investing $1 billion in alternative fuels over the next four years, he's also hard at work developing a new kind of fuel which "if we've got it right, it could be a very important breakthrough. We think this fuel will work in cars and trucks and trains within a year. And we're hoping that it might work in commercial jet engines within five years, possibly sooner. So it will be able to work in Virgin Atlantic planes one day." The project will be called (you guessed it) Virgin Fuel, and Branson seems convinced that he's on to something big. No matter how you slice it, a billion dollars for alternative fuel development and the possibility of a new super-fuel is a pretty good thing. ::CNN via ::AutoblogGreen