Pickens Drops Plan for Largest Wind Farm; Sol’r Power blimp; Battery Swapping & Pay-Per-Mile; Geoengineering Won’t Help Oceans; Hyundai Plug-in Sports Sedan

Pickens Drops Plan for Largest Wind Farm. T. Boone Pickens, the legendary oilman, has abandoned his plan to build the world’s largest wind farm, according to a report in The Dallas Morning News. He still plans on building smaller ones in different areas, though.

Sol’r Power blimp. A group of French engineering students want to see what their solar blimp — the helium-filled, solar-panel-studded Sol’r — can do. They have their eye on the English Channel for their first big test run, though the team has taken the one-seater craft into the air before and do know of its air-worthiness.

Battery Swapping & Pay-Per-Mile. This is how we are going to speed up the development and adoption of electric cars – battery swapping and paying per the mile. Economist Thomas Becker finds that pay-per-mile service contracts and battery switching could deliver much faster adoption of EVs than previous studies suggest.

Geoengineering Won’t Help Oceans. Uh oh. A new study has concluded that geoengineering measures designed to reduce global warming will do little to reduce CO2 levels and, subsequently, ocean acidification. “This century will see the end of coral reefs for the next tens of thousands of years,” said Ken Caldeira, a professor of environmental science. Yikes!

Hyundai Plug-in Sports Sedan. Very, very cool…Hyundai plans to launch a new sporty plug-in electric car based on the striking Blue-Will concept from the Seoul Motor Show earlier this year. Powered by a 1.6-liter gasoline direct-injected powerplant and 100kw electric motor mated up with a CVT automatic transmission, the Blue-Will reportedly has a range of 38 miles in EV mode and an overall rating of 55 mpg when the gas engine is in operation.