Creating a better light offers a plethora of promises: freedom from soot and dark for the world’s poor, lower energy costs for homeowners in developed countries, solutions to design problems, etc.

So what’s new and creative in the eco-lighting world lately? Check out these innovations:

• LightLane. Just a concept at the moment, the idea of LightLane is to use lasers to create a “crisply defined virtual bike lane” to encourage safe cycling minus the brick-and-mortar bike lane costs.
• Nuage Vert. By turning clouds and vapor into aerial projection screens, Nuage Vert provides a new medium for “bearing political ideas and messages.” The “Green Cloud” concept has most recently starred in Helsinki, where the lighted form was beamed onto emissons from a power plant. The more residents did to reduce electricity consumption over the week-long display, the larger the green cloud in the nighttime sky grew.
• The giant glowing flowers of Luminaarparaad. During the day, these oversize plastic flowers and shrubs soak in sunlight; at night, they become a glowing, cheery splash of color along roads and walkways.
• Luna Road. Luna Road’s LED road lights provide solar-powered illumination along nighttime roadways. An eight-hour daytime charge gets drivers 12 hours of lane lighting after sunset.
• Solarbulb. It’s an LED light. It’s solar-powered. It screws onto the tops of used plastic drink bottles, turning potential trash into a solar lamp that can provide lighting inside and out.

• 8 ways that cities are slashing streetlight costs
• Around the world, cities ask, ‘May we have 10,000+ LEDs, please?’
• US vote sets loose a plague of ‘zombie’ green light bulbs
• Japan looks to ‘smarter’ lighting to save energy, ensure safety
• Learn how to save money with LED leasing
• First Nations community uses solar power for airfield lighting
• Über-efficient Philips LED wins $10m US L Prize
• GE expands its line of efficient LEDs
• Indian cities aim to save energy with LEDs
• In the US, battle of the bulbs far from over