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Last year, we featured a nightclub lit entirely by LEDs, but here's an office building that is said to be the first to be lit by 100% LED light. The lighting was provided by the Netherlands-headquartered Royal Philips Electronics. To showcase the potential of LED light, Philips designed the lighting system to be warm and visually comforting. A total 422 LED fixtures were installed into the building's false ceilings. The offices are lit with fixtures that incorporate 12-16 high power LEDs, each rated at 2.6 watts. LED spotlights are used to illuminate the corridors.

We provide an easy, fast, and safe way for you to sell electronics and recycle electronics. When you sell cell phones, mp3 players, laptops, or other gadgets to us, you'll earn cash and help save the environment by keeping old, used gadgets out of landfills. You get green while being green! The bottom line is you want to sell electronics and we want to buy electronics. A perfect match!

While certain American politicians complain about a million bucks being included in the country's energy plan to promote bikes, in the UK they are investing £140 million (about US$ 280 million) to create dedicated bike lanes, provide bike parking, safety training, on-street bike rental networks and a campaign to promote bicycling in 12 Cycling Demonstration Towns.

Cost effective devices expected on market soon Imagine windows that not only provide a clear view and illuminate rooms, but also use sunlight to efficiently help power the building they are part of. MIT engineers report a new approach to harnessing the sun's energy that could allow just that.

And you thought the U.S. was getting big solar photovoltaic projects (like the one being built by SunPower for FPL, or SunEdison for Duke). But those will deliver just a little more than half of what a Godzilla-like solar PV project in Germany will soon provide. The managing director of solar builder Juwi Solar, Michael Martin, said Juwi has already built over half - or 26 MW - of what, at 40 MW, he claims will be the world's largest solar PV project, which could be completed as soon as the end of the year.

The world's oceans are an energetic place, and military-industrial giant Lockheed Martin said today it has been granted $1.2 million by the Department of Energy to demonstrate that ocean thermal energy conversion is possible. Although the ocean often doesn't feel very warm, the temperature gradient between the warm, sun-soaked surface and the frigid, dark depths provides enough of a differential to run a heat engine. The idea has been kicking around for over a century but has never been scaled. Lockheed Martin helped build the largest ocean thermal energy conversion system to date back in the 80s, but it only ever produced 50,000 watts, or .05 megawatts.

Energy utility Exelon Corp. spent nearly $1.2 million in the second quarter to lobby on tax credits for renewable energy sources and other issues, according to a recent disclosure report. The Senate on Tuesday passed a broad tax package providing more than $17 billion in renewable energy tax incentives that the solar and wind industries say are crucial if they are to become significant energy sources in the near future. But the legislation faces obstacles in the House, where three separate bills are on the schedule Wednesday.

The United States Congress passed tax credits for wind, solar, biomass, and geothermal energy, worth $17 billion over eight years. The tax credit portion of the law beefs up and extends an expiring tax credit for renewable-energy projects. It extends a wind power credit for one year, extends geothermal and biomass energy credits for two years, and provides incentives to the solar industry - such as the removal of a $2,000 credit cap for residential solar installations - for eight years, until 2016.

Builders and developers who install solar hot water on new homes are now eligible to receive a $1,000 discount. The discount is currently available for installations carried out before March 31, 2009. Eligible new buildings include single-family residences or small multi-unit residences without a common entrance and comprising less than 600 square meters of building area - or three or fewer stories of building height. These new incentives are available through registered SolarBC contractors, who will provide you with technical advice, professional installation services and will help you apply for your $1000 discount

Solar energy can be utilized in various ways - to provide electricity, mechanical power, heat and lighting. Passive solar heating and cooling can save substantial electricity bills. Design of a building is very important for tapping passive solar energy. The building and windows are designed in such a way that they carefully balance their energy requirements without additional mechanical equipment. Solar benefits are utilized through windows and pumps, and fans are used minimally. Passive solar energy utilizes building constituents such as walls, floors, roofs, windows, exterior building elements and landscaping to control heat generated by sun. Solar heating designs try to trap and store thermal energy from sunlight directly. Passive cooling minimizes the effects of solar radiation through shading or generating air flows with convection ventilation.

A new breed of solar tower may soon be sprouting up in Namibia, providing the nation with a carbon-free source of electricity and food during the day and night. At one and a half kilometers tall and 280 meters wide, these massive solar updraft towers could potentially produce 400MW of energy each - enough to power Windhoek, the nation's capital. Proposed by intellectual property company Hahn & Hahn, the towers generate energy by forcing heated air through a shaft lined with wind turbines. Additionally, the base of each tower will function as a 37 square km greenhouse where crops can be grown.

An alliance of Architects, Engineers and Educators providing Sustainable Design, Green Building and LEED Consulting services. Our clients include Architects, Developers, Contractors, Cities, and others who share the goal of a sustainable built environment.

Kramer Junction. Nevada Solar One. Andasol 1. Kimberlina. They're obscure names today. But they'll be household names tomorrow. The reason? Each is now providing 'here and now' proof concentrating solar power (CSP) works. That can't be said for cabon capture and storage. Nor can it be said for 'next generation' nuclear. Each faces years of additional research and development before some 'first mover' will be game enough to build one. That just isn't the case with concentrating solar power. It's got 20 years of proven commercial operation (Kramer Junction) behind it. It also has new innovations coming on line (Nevada Solar One), with solar thermal storage (Andasol 1), and the promise of super-low costs in coming years (Ausra's Kimberlina). What it adds up to is a price-declining research and development juggernaut in concentrating solar power. This is rapidly bringing concentrating solar power closer to competitiveness with dirty fossil fuels. The California Energy Commission estimates this price 'cross over' could happen by 2015. Bulls predict sooner. And in an industry where new plants and equipment can last 40 years, 5-7 years from now is like tomorrow. What this means is that for forward planning of new infrastructure, concentrating solar power is already nipping at the heels of coal. Toss in carbon prices and the reduced likelihood of protesters chaining themselves to bulldozers as they are likely to at any new coal plants, CSP starts looking like a VERY good deal indeed.

iGo Technologies provides solutions for charging up gadgets more efficiently by ditching standby power. They're debuting a few more cool looking products at the upcoming CES. Read on for a glimpse of what tech we'll get to see in just a couple weeks. Three products iGo is planning on showing off are: - iGo Laptop Charger: Charge your laptop and other devices from any standard wall outlet, including automatic shut-off and recovery to reduce vampire power. - iGo Surge Protector: An eight outlet surge protector with shut-off and recovery to reduce vampire power. - iGo Wall Outlet: A wall outlet with automatic shut-off and recovery.

An aide to Obama said Friday that the administration plans to add 20 gigawatts (GW) or more of wind power and 4 GW of geothermal and solar power by 2012 through loan guarantees and fast tracked national renewable energy requirements, like the Renewable Portfolio Standard. Last May the U.S. Energy Department estimated wind power could provide almost a quarter of U.S. electricity. Trade groups from the U.S. wind and solar industries were happy with the news, considering that the current economic environment for commercial credit has lowered all boats as it were, with all investment now endangered - not just investment in risky financial instruments, but even those investments in renewable energy that are essential to growing a stable economy. 4 votesBuzz up! No other country, in any single year, has added the volume of wind capacity that was added to the US electrical grid in 2007 with both wind and solar growing well over 40%, but with the credit crunch affecting all sectors of the economy, new projects could drop by as much as 50%, without help from the Federal government.

Energy Matters has a post on a new solar PV farm in Portugal - Portugal's Largest Solar Farm Opens. Portugal's Acciona Energy recently opened the country's largest solar power farm, executing the construction of the project in a record time of 13 months. The solar farm covers an area of 250 hectares in the municipality of Moura (Alentejo region), near the border with Spain. The AUD$571 million 48 MW facility will provide power to over 30,000 Portugese households; producing 93 million kWh of electricity annually and avoiding over 89,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions compared to a similar output via coal fired power generation.

The Guardian has a report on some new tidal power technology from a company in Wales inspired by ship propellers and wind turbines - Tidal power gets a boost from propeller and wind turbine techonology. Propellers on ships have been tried and tested for centuries in the rough and unforgiving environment of the sea: now this long-proven technology will be used in reverse to harness clean energy from the UK's powerful tides. The tides that surge around the UK's coasts could provide up to a quarter of the nation's electricity, without any carbon emissions. But life in the stormy seas is harsh and existing equipment - long-bladed underwater wind turbines - is prone to failure.A Welsh renewable energy company has teamed up with ship propulsion experts to design a new marine turbine which they believe is far more robust.

A MAJOR criticism of wind farms is that they are intermittent. Wind does not blow consistently and, as a result they do not provide a continuous supply of power, but must be backed up by conventional fossil fuel plants. However, a renewables firm believes it has hit on a solution, and is hoping to use it in Scotland. A hydrogen plant would store energy from the wind farm, creating a reserve that could be dipped into on demand, so that even when the wind was not blowing, an electricity supply would be available.

Recently the town of Heerlen in the Netherlands repurposed an old abandoned coal mine into a brilliant source of geothermal energy. The project takes advantage of flooded underground mine shafts, using their thermal energy to power a large-scale district heating system. Dubbed the Minewater Project, the new system recently went online and provides 350 homes and businesses in the town with hot water and heating in the winter and cool water in the summer.

The Age recently had an article on the emerging practice of "guerilla gardening", taking a look at the "Gardening guerillas in our midst". This concept seems to have steadily increased in popularity in recent years (admittedly from a very low base) as the permaculture movement's ideas have been propagated through the community. Unlike the usual approach taken when trying to grow food in the suburbs - converting spare land on your own property (as discussed by aeldric previously and, more recently, in Jeff Vail's series on A Resilient Suburbia) - guerilla gardening involves cultivating any spare patch of urban land that isn't being used for another purpose, which could provide a substantial addition to the food growing potential of suburbia.