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Residential Lighting has invented a new type of light bulb, that claims green gains, even more green than the CFLs. The new technology is called ESL (electro-stimulated luminescence).

Environ Sci Technol. 2003 Dec 1;37(23):5414-6. Global sustainability and key needs in future automotive design. McAuley JW. Basell USA Inc., 912 Appleton Road, Elkton, Maryland 21921, USA. john.mcauley@basell.com Abstract The number of light vehicle registrations is forecast to increase worldwide by a factor of 3-5 over the next 50 years. This will dramatically increase environmental impacts worldwide of automobiles and light trucks. If light vehicles are to be environmentally sustainable globally, the automotive industry must implement fundamental changes in future automotive design. Important factors in assessing automobile design needs include fuel economy and reduced emissions. Many design parameters can impact vehicle air emissions and energy consumption including alternative fuel or engine technologies, rolling resistance, aerodynamics, drive train design, friction, and vehicle weight. Of these, vehicle weight is key and will translate into reduced energy demand across all energy distribution elements. A new class of vehicles is needed that combines ultra-light design with a likely hybrid or fuel cell engine technology. This could increase efficiency by a factor of 3-5 and reduce air emissions as well. Advanced lightweight materials, such as plastics or composites, will need to overtake the present metal-based infrastructure. Incorporating design features to facilitate end-of-life recycling and recovery is also important. The trend will be towards fewer materials and parts in vehicle design, combined with ease of disassembly. Mono-material construction can create vehicle design with improved recyclability as well as reduced numbers of parts and weight.

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.

the Invisible Streetlight is a solar powered street light that imitates leaves and can be hidden among natural plants on the sides of streets.

The Video Learning Center explains that conventional silicon solar cells operate by reacting with photons in light and create free electrons which flow as current in a circuit. But these electrons only remain free for a very short time. The material the OSU researchers created is not only able to capture all visible light, but also to free electrons for 7 million times longer than silicon. As a result more electricity is capable of being produced than ever before.

banning efficient lamps to save Europeans companies. but how efficient were the lamps anyway?

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.

CityTouch, an online urban lighting management system developed by Philips that enables dynamic, intelligent and flexible control on a city-wide scale.

70% energy savings sound good. But how to claim 70% less maintenance costs. Less energy use means obviously less heat and more reliability. On the other hand, this is a much more complex system. It would be good to have an actual user stating this 70% reduction after installing the system and using it for a few years.

But Peter Löscher, Siemens' chief executive, said he was upbeat about Osram's growth expectations in the light of Monday's news. "The decision from the European Union will accelerate growth in our green product line," he told the Financial Times.

"The new material provides a "stepping-stone" for electrons to move from one energy level to another as they absorb photons, allowing more photons of different energy levels (and thus different parts of the light spectrum) to be utilized. So while some efficiency research goes into breaking down what is absorbed into specific wavelengths or trapping light for greater absorption, this technology basically casts a really wide net in order to increase how much light can be captured and turned into energy."

Through the use of an environmentally-friendly energy saving bulb with no heat emission, Matt can be "your friend all the way through long, platonic reading nights."

A recent study was published yesterday by researchers at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute quantifying a bunch of different factors in water use in the energy industry. Some of the figures are staggering. Using America's current power mix, it takes up to 6,000 gallons of fresh water to keep a 60 watt light bulb lit for 12 hours a day for a year. Most of this energy is consumed as a cooling fluid at power plants.