VentureBeat

Google.org, Google’s philanthropic arm, has taken a number of stakes in solar and wind startups over the past year, most recently joining a $115 million investment in solar thermal firm BrightSource Energy. It now seems to be focusing its attention on the bustling geothermal energy sector, with Google co-founder Sergey Brin recently expressing a strong interest in Ormat, a geothermal startup headquartered in Reno, Nevada.

During an interview with the Israeli newspaper, The Marker, Brin confirmed that his company was in discussions with Ormat to collaborate on several clean energy projects, calling the startup a “great company” and praising it for its potential to turn geothermal energy “into a big business.” Though he wouldn’t say whether Google was in talks to purchase any Israeli cleantech companies, he did say that the conditions were good for his firm to buy companies in 2009. He said there were a lot of interesting companies that worked in renewable energy and electric cars — perhaps a nod to Shai Agassi’s Project Better Place.

According to Haaretz, senior executives at Google have already met with their counterparts from Ormat twice, and Larry Page recently visited one of the company’s plants in Steamboat Hills, Nevada. Ormat chairman Lucien Bronicki said he and Google officials were pushing legislation in the U.S. advocating more R&D for advanced geothermal technology. Ormat announced in February that it would work with the DOE and several geothermal companies — GeothermEx and Pinnacle Technologies — to test Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS) technology at its 11 megawatt Desert Peak facility.

The DOE has committed $1.6 million to support the project, which could eventually yield over 50 MW of power. The partnership will test hot fractured rock (HFR) technology to attempt to increase the output of its geothermal wells. Sydney, Australia-based Geodynamics, which I wrote about a few weeks ago, has been on the forefront with this technology and is nearing the completion of a 50 MW demonstration plant to supply up to 75,000 people by 2012.

Ormat has several existing projects in Guatemala, Kenya and Nicaragua is considered the world leader in geothermal energy.

In addition to making a series of high-profile investments in eSolar, BrightSource and Makani Power as part of its RE<C initiative, Google has also donated over $1 million in grants to support plug-in vehicle adoption. The foundation’s RechargeIT initiative recently gave $200,000 to CalCars.org. Page said Google.org’s goal is to produce 1 gigawatt of renewable energy capacity from wind, geothermal and solar thermal sources cheaper than coal, an objective he and Brin are optimistic will be met in years, rather than decades.

Small countries really do make for faster drives, it seems — especially when it comes to the drive to adopt electric cars. Project Better Place has struck a deal in another tiny-but-rich country, Denmark, only two months after it announced a collaborative effort with two large car companies to install a network of charging stations for electric cars in Israel.

Project Better Place, if you’ll recall, is the company started by former SAP heir-apparent Shai Agassi and funded with a giant $200 million round. The company’s aim is to spread the adoption of electric cars by building the infrastructure — in this case, refueling stops analogous to gas stations — necessary to support them.

In Denmark, Better Place’s partner will be Dong Energy AS, a local utility. The plan is to build charging stations that pull surplus energy from Denmark’s wind power installations. Those installations supply about 20 percent of the country’s energy, more than any other place in the world.

That should provide a more significant environmental benefit than Israel’s system, powered by the coal plants that provide the majority of that nation’s power. The same Nissand and Renault partnership will provide electric cars to both countries.

If Better Place and its host countries are successful, it may mark the definitive eclipse of the United States as a leader in electric vehicle technology — even though the company itself is based in California. But companies like Tesla Motors aside, if the biggest markets for electric cars are in countries thousands of miles away, how will we be able to do anything but follow in their footsteps?

Large auto makers Nissan Motor Co. and Renault SA have entered a partnership to develop an all-electric car to be distributed first in Israel, then in other countries, working in collaboration with Shai Agassi’s Palo Alto-based startup Project Better Place.

PBP recently amassed $200 million in venture investments but only disclosed a vague plan to lease out batteries and electric cars, as well as provide charging stations for them. Its near-term plans now seem more concrete; in the Israeli project, it will work alongside the government to develop a grid of 500,000 charging stations.

Agassi’s partnership with Israel looks like an especially canny business decision for more than one reason. The government has strong motivation to see his project succeed — the country, surrounded on every side by hostile oil-rich states, has few natural resources of its own.

Additionally, with its small size and short commute distances, Israel is especially well-suited to the electric car business. The first model the Nissan/Renault partnership will build is planned to have a 60 mile range for city driving, or 100 miles on the highway, and a top speed of about 70 miles per hour.

If the plan is successful, other small countries, like Denmark, will be next on the list.

Notably, the manufacturers stated that they want the car to be as “normal as possible,” in order to reach a mass market with sales of ten to twenty thousand vehicles a year in Israel.

The vehicles themselves will eventually be exported to the United States. However, replacing our gasoline-based transportation infrastructure would take a great deal more than a $200 million investment.