A stunning installation in Tokyo's Sumida River created quite a visual  spectacle, but it has an important message too.

Kicking off the inaugural Tokyo Hotaru festival, 100,000 solar-powered LEDs were sent down the Sumida River last week. During the 18th century catching "horatu," Japanese for "firefly," was a popular past time on the shores of this expansive river.

Inspired by the fireflies that once inhabited the river, the LEDs were created to resemble those glowing creatures of flight that will always remind me of warm summer nights in Georgia. This luminescent sculpture speaks to a time before urban life and polluted waters pushed these tiny creatures from their homes along the banks of the Sumida. The LED horatu were provided by Panasonic and designed to illuminate upon contact with the water. To prevent further pollution of the Sumida, large nets were used to capture the LEDs further down the river.

Source: Spoon & Tamago

Photo Credits: makure, Mai Suzuki, tokyo-hotaru.com, Jeremy V. and ajpscs

Check out some of our favorite concepts for urban bikers.

May is National Bike To Month and there will be Bike to Work celebrations happening all over the country. Here at Crisp Green we are celebrating this two-wheeled holiday with some of the newest technologies for biking!

1. SoBi

Created and Founded by Ryan Rzepecki, SoBi is a unique bike-sharing system that has eliminated the need for dedicated docking stations or complex infrastructure, making these systems ready to implement in any city or any college campus. Using readily available technologies including on-board computers, GPS and smart phones users can easily locate, reserve and pick-up bikes. Each bike includes an electronic locking and locating system that is pedal-powered and when stationary is powered by solar panels.

Learn more about SoBi and how to bring it to your town here.

2. Magnetic Bike Lights

These handy little LED lights make it easy for riders to grab and go when locking up. Using magnets, the lights attach to any steel frame, and have been designed to accommodate a variety of sizes. Not only do the magnets make it easy to lock and go, but these lights also turn on and off simply by touching to or removing from the bike frame.

Compact and easy to use, these lights come packaged in recycled materials, making them a top choice for eco-conscious riders. Lights can be pre-ordered on Copenhagen Parts (expected to drop Autumn 2012).

3. Glo-Bar

Mitchell Silva has designed a prototype LED handlebar that not only lights the path for riders, but aims to prevent accidents by making it easier for nearby pedestrians and drivers to see oncoming cyclists. The lighted handlebars can also be used as turning signals via buttons attached to the stem. Although still in the prototype stage, Silva's design is part of a growing trend in new LED lighting for bikes, making it safer for urban cyclists to ride at night.

Source: Inhabitat

Thanks to a recent upgrade, the "World's Most Famous Office Building" will be a showcase for the world’s most advanced LED lighting system.

The Empire State Building is one of the most iconic members of the New York City skyline. It's always fun to see the massive building lit up with colorful lights celebrating key national milestones, social causes, and holidays. What most of us didn't realize is that it takes a team of workers seven hours to change the light fixtures every time the building needs to display a new combination of colors.

Thanks to a new, custom LED system created by Philips Color Kinetics, however, the façade and mast of the Empire State Building will now be able to change lighting scenes in real-time, without wasting a ton of energy.

The building's owners are working with Philips to replace the existing 400+ traditional light fixtures--old fashioned high intensity discharge bulbs—with over 1,200 state-of-the-art LED fixtures, uniquely designed for the building. Not only is the new system computerized, allowing ESB staff to customize lightings from a palette of over 16 million colors (right now, it has 10), the staff will be able to do program updates to the lights almost instantaneously.

The new lighting upgrade is part of the building's renovation and modernization initiatives and is estimated to use just ¼ of the energy that the previous lighting systems did—reducing the energy consumption by approximately 73 percent.

We know you've been waiting with bated breath, but the results are finally in. For the second time in less than 10 years, Mercedes-Benz won the award for producing the greenest car in the world. Surprised? We kinda were too.

When thinking about green cars, characteristics like small, simple, and incredibly-efficient normally spring to mind. Luxury car does not. According to the judges at the World Car Awards, however, retaining performance and aesthetic appeal without polluting the planet is noteworthy as well.

These criteria led a panel of three green car experts to select the Mercedes-Benz S 250 CDI BlueEFFICIENCY from an initial entry list of 23 new vehicles from all over the world. Other finalists were the Ford Focus Electric, and the Peugeot 3008 Hybrid. This is the second time in World Green Car history that a Mercedes-Benz technology has won this award.  The Mercedes-Benz E320 Bluetec technology was the 2007 World Green Car winner.

To be eligible for the 2012 World Green Car award, a vehicle had to be all-new, or substantially revised, in production and introduced for sale or lease to the public in quantities of at least 10 in at least one major market during the period beginning January 1, 2011 and ending May 30th, 2012.  Tailpipe emissions, fuel consumption, and use of a major advanced power plant technology (beyond engine componentry), aimed specifically at increasing the vehicle's environmental responsibility, were all taken into consideration.

"This is the first 4-cylinder S-Class in the 60-year history of the legendary model. Powered by a 204hp diesel turbo producing 500Nm, this S-Class develops ample power from the world's cleanest diesel, while the incorporation of a start-stop system means that this car produces an outstanding 149g/km of CO2," said the expert judges regarding the Mercedes-Benz S 250 CDI BlueEFFICIENCY.

Do you think the Mercedes deserved to win over the much smaller, more affordable Ford EV and Peugeot 3008 Hybrid? Tell us in a comment!

Just as word spread that Chevy would back away from the Volt for a time, Volkswagen announced that it would dip its toe into the U.S. electric vehicle market for the first time.

Beginning this month, Volkswagen will launch a pilot program to test 20 prototype E-Golf Battery Electric Vehicles in select locations in the U.S. The testing program will last for nine months, during which time a dozen of the green cars will be driven by selected Volkswagen employees.

The E-Golf is identical to the conventional four-door Golf model, with seating for five people. It includes a powerful electric motor that's sustained by a 180-cell lithium-ion battery with an energy capacity of 26.5 kilowatt-hours.  The E-Golf has an estimated driving range of 93 miles.

By distributing the E-Golf prototypes to drivers in Detroit Metro, San Francisco, and Washington D.C. markets, Volkswagen says it will be able to better monitor the effect of climate conditions, driving patterns, and energy performance in different geographical regions. It will use the data and insights collected during the study to develop future EV technology applications.

In addition to testing the vehicle itself, users will also sample specific services designed specifically for the E-Golf. A 220-volt charging stations will be installed at each employee's home to charge the vehicles. Each E-Golf comes with an iPhone and a dedicated app that allow the user to check the battery’s charging status, regulate the car’s internal temperature, gauge how much charging time is left, or even remotely start the charging procedure. Finally, Volkswagen has set up a web portal dedicated to the fleet test to support the users 24/7 in case of specific questions and in order to allow users to share their feedback on the E-Golf.

Summer is just around the corner, and for those who live in big cities, that means spring warmth will soon give way to searing heat. Green roofs can help regulate city temperatures, giving people, and the electrical grid, a much needed break.

Toronto is the first city in North America with a bylaw that requires roofs to be green. And we're not talking about paint. A green roof, also known as a living roof, uses various hardy plants to create a barrier between the sun's rays and the tiles or shingles of the roof. The plants love the sun, and the building (and its inhabitants) enjoy more comfortable indoor temperatures as a result.

Toronto's new legislation will require all residential, commercial and institutional buildings over 2,000 square meters to have between 20 and 60 percent living roofs. Although it's been in place since early 2010, the bylaw will apply to new industrial development as of April 30, 2012. While this is the first city-wide mandate involving green roofs, Toronto's decision follow's in the footsteps of other cities, like Chicago and New York.

Under the direction of Mayor Richard Daley the city of Chicago put a 38,800 square foot green roof on a 12 story skyscraper in 2000. Twelve years later, that building now saves $5000 annually on utility bills, and Chicago boasts 7 million square feet of green roof space. New York has followed suit, and since planting a green roof on the Con Edison Learning Centre in Queens, the buildings managers have seen a 34 percent reduction of heat loss in winter, and reduced summer heat gain by 84 percent.

But lower utility bills aren't the only benefit of planting a living roof. In addition to cooling down the city, green roofs create cleaner air, cleaner water, and provide a peaceful oasis for people, birds and insects in an otherwise polluted, concrete and asphalt-covered environment.

Image via Flickr/pnwra

Usually encounters with animal poop are one of the less-than-savory zoo experiences, but the Denver Zoo hopes to make fecal matter the star of its newest exhibit.

Denver Zoo staff incorporated patent-pending gasification technology into the design of a three-wheeled rickshaw called a tuk tuk. As their working protoype demonstrates, this "gasifier" sustainably turns animal poop and human trash into fuel that can be used to transport visitors through the Zoo's new 10-acre exhibit, Toyota Elephant Passage..

According to Zoo officials, the gasification system will convert more than 90 percent of the zoo's waste into usable energy, eliminating 1.5 million pounds of trash currently going to landfills annually.

This unique technology developed by the zoo, designed and built by three full-time staff, is under provisional patent protection and will be the first to utilize a diverse on-site waste stream, a breakthrough that could change how the world manages waste and creates energy.

To share this innovative solution with other zoos, the poo-powered tuk tuk went on a road tour. The crew stopped at zoos in Colorado Springs, Albuquerque and Phoenix before arriving at its final destination at the AZA Mid-year Meeting yesterday in Palm Desert, California.

The Denver Zoo expects to implement the full system in the Toyota Elephant Passage exhibit by the end of the year.

Image via Denver Zoo