Lighting the dark is tough on the environment. It’s gotten better with light-emitting diode (LED) bulbs and compact fluorescents lights but can a light bulb get even more eco-friendly? A Seattle start-up company called Vu1 is banking its future on creating a better light bulb.

The company’s Electron Stimulated Luminescence (ESL) lighting technology is neither incandescent nor fluorescent nor LED. The company’s chief marketing officer Ron Davis told Residential Lighting, an industry website last month, that its bulbs will be energy-efficient, mercury-free, totally nontoxic and household disposable. That’s good news for places that are getting strict regulations on light bulbs, especially those banning incandescents.

The new bulb will be fully dimmable with instant-on capability and should interface with existing lighting controls. Compact fluorescent lights (CFL) send currents through a mercury vapor and LEDs, such as EarthLEDs, use no mercury and create light by electrically stimulating a semiconductor material that emits UV light. Vu1 claims its ESL bulbs will create the same light quality as an incandescent but is more energy efficient and won’t use any neurotoxin mercury in the lighting process.

The company says its bulbs will be cleaner than CFLs, with its mercury and twisted shape, and greener than LEDs with their heavy heat dissipation. It does this by its patented technology of using accelerated electrons to stimulate phosphor to create light, making the surface of the bulb “glow” and thereby emit light.

Vu1 says it can use standard light bulb glass and will fit into class light bulb shapes familiar to consumers anywhere. It anticipates its mercury-free bulbs will be available sometime early next year and is pricing the bulbs at $12, which puts it on par with dimmable compact fluorescent lights. There’s no proof yet of how well ESLs work and until it comes on the market, we’ll remain in the dark on just how different this new light bulb is from LEDs and CFLs.

Via Residential Lighting, CleanTechnica, Vu1; Photo via laszlo

This is one of those things that make my Monday a little happier. A chicken farm north of Beijing is making a better use of a coal-fired plant by converting it to utilize its 220 tons of chicken manure produced daily by its 3 million chickens. So chickens can power people, and homes.

Maure is handy for helping out with alternative energy and fuels, and this plant will be pretty significant in terms of getting power from poo. The revamped plant is the Dequingyuan Chicken Farm Waste Utilization Plant, and will reduce CO2 emissions by 95,000 tons a year while producing 14,600 MWh of electricity annually.

An anaerobic digester will treat waste material and produce biogas that powers two gas engines. The heat generated during the process will be cycled back in to the fermentation process, as well as heat the farm and all those chickens during winter…so they can poo more. Nice loop, isn’t it.

While factory farms like this are ridiculously hard on the environment, we know that they aren’t going away in the immediate future. So it’s good to see this farm doing something to reduce its footprint a bit.

Via Cleantechnica; photo via darynbarry

Here’s something that, if it works, would be great to use to line the streets of smoggy cities. The University of Twente has possibly figured out a way to get paving stones to scrub the air, turning nitrogen oxide into a harmless nitrate that can wash away with rain.

The secret is in the sauce, so to speak – titanium dioxide is mixed with the concrete which catalyzes chemical reactions with light exposure. So when sun hits the bricks, the nitrogen oxide (mainly from car exhaust) is turned into nitrates. And then when the rain comes down, the nitrates are washed away with the dust. The university claims the nitrates are harmless, so we wouldn’t run the risk of having just another form of toxin like we do with nitrates from heavy fertilization.

Testing will be going on this year with some preliminary results by next year that will show the effectiveness of the paving stones. Should the stones pull the trick, this could be a pretty cool breakthrough in green construction materials. Especially if cleaner methods of concrete manufacturing is used, since concrete is pretty CO2 intensive to create. Perhaps we’ll even see them in more green housing communities.

Via cnet, photo via University of Twente

Two utility companies in California are going to do fleet testing for the i-MiEV. Kinda cool that I might get a shot at seeing it in action around these parts. Southern California Edison is going to see how the cars can connect with the smart grid and advanced meters, and Pacific Gas & Electric will handle finding out the impact of all the charging that’ll be going on to keep EVs running. PG&Es info will also go towards showing the benefits of using all-electric vehicles in Cali. Seems like they’re pretty confident they’ll be thumbs-uped. This will be important info to gather considering San Jose, CA is gearing up for EV use, among other CA cities, as is Oregon. I’m going to be keeping my eyes peeled for info about testing and see if I can catch one out and about.

Via TreeHugger, EGMCarTech

It’s quite a week for biofuel breakthroughs and news. Iowa State University research has revealed a way to reduce the energy and water use required to produce corn ethanol, saving ethanol plants a possible collective $800 million a year in energy costs and as much as 10 billion gallons of water a year. And it’s all based on a fungus, and recycling.

The new breakthrough is aimed at the dry-grind part of the ethanol production process. Basically, corn kernels are ground up, water and enzymes are added, starches are turned into sugars, and sugars are fermented to produce ethanol. The ethanol is recovered with distillation. At the end of the ethanol distillation process, there is a liquid left over – about 6 gallons for every 1 gallon of ethanol. Only about half of the leftover liquid can be recycled, and the process to remove solids and organic materials in it is expensive. When the fungus Rhizopus microsporus is added to the liquid and allowed to flourish, it makes possible as much as 80% of the organic matter and solids in the sillage to be removed, and the liquid leftover can then be recycled into the production process.

The fungus has another useful element – it can be eaten. Ethanol plants can harvest the protein- and nutrient-rich fungus and sell it as a livestock food supplement.

Implementing the new technology would cost an ethanol plant that produces 100 million gallons a year about $11 million – kind of a lot for ethanol plants right now, but still do-able. And, researchers say that investment could be paid back in as little as six months, thanks to the energy savings. The process is still waiting for a patent, and investors to help the project prove that the process can work on a commercial scale, so all this is still iffy. But iffy it works, then ethanol plants could have a new way to reduce overall costs and environmental impact on production.

Via Treehugger, Engineer Live; Photo via viknanda

I think that Dubai is worth studying. How, exactly, does an oil state become the home of green innovations. It takes more than just money, of course, there are plenty of oil states who have remained in the cleantech dark ages. But I'm going to have to file that thought away for later, because I must announce a NEW planned ultra-green city.

Xeritown is green in both high and low-tech ways. They've centered the city so that the ocean breeze air-conditions the entire city. They've laid it out to be pedestrian friendly and inconvenient for cars. There's no road more than two lanes wide in the whole 60 acres. And, taking it's name from Xeriscaping, the city uses next to no water for non-domestic purposes. All landscaping is suitable for the desert and graywater will be used for industrial purposes.

But, of course, it comes with its fair share of photovoltaics to power the city. Panels will line the streets and shade the sidewalks.

Of course, unlike Masdar City, this project has not yet been approved for construction. But if Dubai's record for surprising me stands, they'll be breaking ground in no time.

Via Inhabitat

The car developed by Cree called SAM, a Swiss three-wheeled concept zero emissions electric car, didn’t seem to be making any progress, considering the designing company shut down in 2003. But Polish company Impact Automotive Technologies have scooped it up from the ashes, re-engineered it, and the Cree could be coming out of the factory soon.

The new design includes better lithium-polymer batteries to give it a longer range, a brushless AC motor, programmable on-board charger and a data logger. We haven’t heard if it performs any better, so we can’t compare it to some other three wheelers we’ve seen around here, but it has been road tested and certified in Italy and the UK – the only two placed it’s likely to find much of an audience. IAT’s plans are to send 500 vehicles on their merry way this September, and 5,000 to come out in 2009.

Via AutoblogGreen