In France right now revisiting the ITER fusion project for a few days. Wrote about it for EnergyBiz after a visit to the project launch 18 months ago. In my book, it represents the most important energy initiative anywhere on the planet. If it succeeds ... more of that later.

I had a jet-lagged conversation today with a Brit nuclear physicist on the site and he is convinced the science will work. Engineers and scientists when confronted with technical challenges roll up their sleeves and get to work. The reason for fusion's bad rap - that since the 1950s everyone said it was a few decades away from being ready for prime time - is that politicians have failed to keep sustained support for the effort, the physicist said. They do not have the grit.

On the plane ride across the Big Pond, I read THE MOTHER LODE in the current issue of Fast Company, about VC bigshot John Doerr. Green technology, he said, is "nothing less than the reindustrialization of the whole planet." And demand for alternative energy is soaing, he said, and represents "the mother of all markets."

I wish everyone would just abandon their blinders. Green technology will happen. And so will revolutionary new energy technologies such as fusion. The sooner that we start reimagining what is possible, the sooner the game changers will arrive.