Green Technology News

Summary of this week's top green technology news from around the web:

UK-based Siemens Mobility Traffic Solutions is re-inventing the traffic light.  By replacing the energy-inefficient tungsten-halogen lights by a cluster of LEDs, the company expects to reduce the energy usage to less than 25%  and maintenance costs as well.

A biofuel demonstration flight will take place today at Schiphol Airoprt in Amsterdam.  UOP LLC, a Honeywell company, created green jet fuel from renewable feedstocks.  Camelina, an inedible plant, was used to generate the biofuel.  This flight will be the first to carry observers and the first demonstration of its kind in Europe.

Masdar City may become the world's first city with zero carbon emissions and zero waste.  40,000 to 50,000 people are slated to live in this city conceived by Abu Dhabi.  15 billion in seed money has been put up for this venture.

American think-tanks have concluded that Asia is set to dominate the clean technology market.  China is duplicating the strategies employed by Japanese and Korean governments to establish a technological lead in other markets.  China is already the world's biggest exporter of solar power products and has one of the largest wind-power industries.

ZeaChem, a biofuel startup company, is building a pilot plant that will manufacture ethanol from cellulosic feedstocks using microbes found in termites.  Instead of using yeast to ferment the sugars into alcohol, the sugars are fed to a bacteria found within various insects including termites. This results in significantly higher yields than other production processes.

One of the world's largest brake pad manufacturers, FRAS-LE, is about to introduce a new environmentally-friendly hybrid material for use in friction applications such as brake pads.  The material doesn't contain chemicals such as asbestor, lead, mercury, lead, chromium, nickel, antimony or copper.  The material meets California's 2032 legislation, 22 years ahead of time.