Smart Innovations, Better Lightbulbs Among 2009's Top Green Technologies
By Our Green Team | Feb 5 2010, 15:26

The many innovations in eco-friendly technologies last year have the potential to pave the way for a greener, more sustainable future for all of us.

So what sort of developments showed the most promise? Consider these:

• The 100,000-hour lightbulb - Researchers around the world are working to develop the next generation of ultra-efficient and long-lasting lightbulbs. Colin Humphreys, a materials scientist at Cambridge University, believes the answer lies with gallium-nitride LEDs (light-emitting diodes), which have the potential to be much more energy-efficient than even compact-fluorescent bulbs and are greener, too, because they don't require mercury. This particular type of LED can also provide light for up to 100,000 hours - about 60 years' worth of lighting for the average homeowner. Humphreys says a commercially available gallium-nitride LED might be just five years away.
• Smart is the way to go - 2009 was the year when "smart" - as in smart energy grids, smart meters and even smart cities - became a big buzzword. IBM began working with several cities around the world to implement smart technologies to automate services, manage traffic and do other innovative things to save energy and improve efficiency. And officials in Britain announced plans to put a smart energy meter in every home by the year 2020. By letting homeowners see exactly how much energy they're using at any moment, and which appliances are most energy intensive, smart meters are seen as a way to help boost conservation at the user level.
• Let's pull energy from the air - Scientists last year made considerable advances in technologies that can capture kinetic energy - basically, the energy of anything that's moving, from sound waves to people - and store it for use. Some of the innovations included gear that lets pedestrians draw energy from their strides to power an iPod or mobile phone; batteries that can recharge using the energy of sound waves; and remote measuring devices that are powered by vibrations.
• A world powered by the sun - The solar energy that strikes the Earth every day would be more than enough to provide all the power our civilization needs. That fact last year inspired a new project - Desertec -- that aims to install a vast array of solar-thermal power facilities across the North African desert. The energy that array could generate could not only meet the energy needs for much of Europe, the Middle East and North Africa, but could also power desalination operations to provide much-needed water in desert regions.
• Electricity goes mobile - 2009 also saw the idea of the electric car going mainstream, in that big car-makers were not only talking about, but actually developing plug-in hybrids and all-electric vehicles. The biggest splash was made by Nissan, which unveiled its LEAF, the first all-electric car designed for the mass market.
• Biofuels 2.0 - The quest for a fuel to replace oil led to a boom, and then a bust, for corn-based ethanol, which proved to be less of a good thing than once hoped (because it requires the use of prime farmland, is energy- and water-intensive and competes with food production). Last year, the focus turned onto so-called next-generation biofuels: things like crop waste, municipal waste and even algae, which can be produced on marginal lands or even - as one proposal suggested - on floating platforms at sea.