Oil opens lower in Asia after setting records Thursday; an Aussie company reveals their astonishing new car engine; and even Big Oil is turning to wind power.

Oil prices ease in Asia after overnight jump above $140 a barrel: The price of petroleum relaxed a little at the Asian market open early this morning after setting new records on Thursday. Oil rose to $140.39 a barrel yesterday after OPEC president Chakib Khelil predicted that crude could soar to between $150 and $170 later this summer. Khelil said he expects more price spikes in coming months. Meanwhile, major oil-producing nation Libya says it may reduce production due to what it deems are adequate supplies on the world market. (International Herald Tribune)

Jeff Rubin Predicts “Mass Exodus” From Cars in US: If worse comes to worse, what would $7 to $10 a gallon gasoline mean to countries such as the United States? A lot less driving, if Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce analyst Jeff Rubin is correct. At those prices, gasoline expenses would overtake groceries for may households. The result: up to 10 million fewer cars on American roads, as lower-income families park their cars and switch to public transportation. Rubin says Americans are likely to adopt more “European” transportation behavior as fuel prices continue to rise. (Treehugger)

Svevind and Enercon Team up for 4GW Wind Plan: Here’s a wind project for the record books. Swedish windpower developer Svevind and German turbine builder Enercom plan to cooperate on the build-out of a massive 4 gigawatt windfarm network in northern Sweden. The $9.3 billion project will be largely constructed on land owned by the state-run forestry agency Sveaskog. Neither Svevind nor Enercon have revealed precisely how many turbines or wind parks will be raised to complete the network, but Enercon has stated that it plans to manufacture 2 megawatt turbines for the project. (Clean Edge)

Low Cost Gas Engine Innovation Doubles Fuel Economy: An Australian company called Revetec has developed a car motor which weighs about half of a conventional model and produces 50 percent fewer emissions. Better yet: the “controlled combustion engine” gets double the fuel economy of comparable motors. The design could potentially act as a bridge technology to wide-scale fuel cell or electrical fleet deployment. Revetec has already built prototypes and submitted them for independent testing. (Gas 2.0)

Chevron Relying on Wind Power to Run Offshore Oil Rigs: Offshore oil rigs are becoming festooned with the trappings of their future obsolescence: wind turbines. Chevron is among the companies turning to small turbines to power the equipment responsible for monitoring rig operations and performance. Rig Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition installations used to be powered by oil-fired generators. But with increasing fuel costs, even Big Oil is looking to the future. (SolveClimate)