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"Mexican government's Special 2010-2012 Climate Change Program. * Quintana Roo Governor Félix González Canto has announced plans to install 25,507 high-efficiency GE LED street lights in the town of Othón P. Blanco * The pioneering initiative represents the largest LED street lighting installation in Latin America, saving the town 51% on energy "

The incandescent lightbulb that wastes 90% of the electricity as heat is dying, we all know that. But a new breakthrough in solid state lighting might also kill compact fluorescent lightbulbs (CFLs) faster than some expected. Scientists at Purdue University have figured out how to manufacture LED solid-state lights on regular metal-coated silicon wafers (more details below). What this means is: much lower costs.

It seems that in the last decade scientists have switched goals from producing efficient LEDs to producing "natural light" LEDs. However, whenever this was achieved, significant efficiency sacrifices were made to enable experimentation to work. Through use of a nano-crystaline coating, it seems that scientists at Bilkent University, Turkey have succeeded in creating an LED that "produces attractive white light while wasting next-to-no electricity". The definition of attractive is that for each watt of light produced, around 300 lumens are visible to the human eye. This compares with fluorescents which produce around 80 lumens per watt, according to the article. There is however a barrier to market. This is because the nano-crystalline coating is expensive and apparently difficult to produce.

The savings claimed here are against CFL, FL and HPS - not tungsten! Cree, Inc, a manufacturer of LED solid-state lighting components, released the results of the first phase of the conversion of its Durham headquarters to LED lighting, which has resulted in the use of 48% less energy than the lights they replaced and plans to convert all lighting at the headquarters and manufacturing facility to LED lighting.

"Pike Research, who just released a report predicting that LEDs will account for almost half of the $4.4 billion commercial lighting business within the next decade."

You can start typing your 'cut out the misleading headlines' comments now if you like, but just because no other nation in the world recognizes the three-acre country of Dumpling Island, off the Connecticut/New York coast, doesn't mean I'm going to knock down island-owner and Segway inventor Dean Kamen's claims that his private island isn't part of the United States. In any case, independent nation or no, Dumpling Island has indeed become a net zero energy (shall we agree on?) locale. How? By replacing all the light fixtures on the island with LED lights:

San Jose will convert 115 lights to energy-efficient, programmable LED lamps by June 2009, and is seeking funds from the stimulus package to install additional lights and control systems. The plan is to change all of the city's more than 62,000 streetlights to a new system by 2022.

A light-emitting diode (LED) (pronounced /ˌɛl.iːˈdiː/[1]) is a semiconductor light source. LEDs are used as indicator lamps in many devices, and are increasingly used for lighting. Introduced as a practical electronic component in 1962,[2] early LEDs emitted low-intensity red light, but modern versions are available across the visible, ultraviolet and infrared wavelengths, with very high brightness.

Still, it's certain that a new generation of lighting devices based on LEDs will become available and reduce our carbon dioxide emissions.

Researchers from Korea claim to have produced the world's first purely white LED (light-emitting diode).

$40, 80 lm/watt

Panasonic has launched a new household LED lightbulb in Japan that it says lasts 40 times longer than incandescent bulbs.

As part of a $1 billion global relaunch, Holiday Inn is incorporating energy efficiency lighting measures at its 3200 hotels that will save over $4 million annually.