VentureBeat

Kleiner Perkins, the Silicon Valley venture capital firm that preaches the need to invest in green technologies and reduce global warming, has invested in a second company that seeks to produce more oil.

The firm has joined an Indian research group, TERI, and private equity investor GTI to invest $10 million in Houston’s GloriOil, a company boasting a new technology that helps oil companies get more oil out of existing wells.

This follow news in March that Kleiner invested in another oil exploration company Terralliance.

Both investments were made quietly, with no announcement. Kleiner has not yet responded to a request for comment made late yesterday.

Kleiner’s leading partner John Doerr has led a crusade to stop the damage caused by global warming caused by greenhouse emissions and has publicly broken down in tears over the issue. Investing in oil exploration, of course, makes it possible to drill oil more efficiently, and produce greenhouse emissions in even greater amounts, and stands in contradiction to the firm’s stated public mission. Explaining its first investment, in Terralliance, Kleiner made the somewhat shaky argument investments like this reduce waste associated with traditional drilling, and so are making a helpful contribution.

The company adds a mixture of microbes and nutrients into the ground that stimulates growth of the active agents in a shut-in area which generate oil. The company returns three weeks later to recoup the oil. It boasts that wells treated this way triples production.

The company was founded in 2005, and based on technology developed by the Energy and Resources Institute, a New Delhi, India research organization, which has studied oil recovery for a decade. It is also testing the technology with private companies in Texas.

The news follows a $12 million investment into another oil recovery company, DynaPump. Investors included DFJ Element, NGP Energy Technology Partners and existing investor CTTV Investments (Chevron’s investment arm), and it is the company’s third round.

Update: We’re told SiliconTap first mentioned the investment several days ago.

Norwegian electric car company Think Global AS, aiming to roll out its first electric vehicles this years, said it has raised $60 million in its second round of financing.

Its the latest electric car company to get significant funding, following Silicon Valley’s Tesla Motors, which is building a high-end, all-electric sports car.

The two companies are partnering, with Tesla providing batteries for the Think, a much smaller, more practical car.

Think has now raised $85 million this year. Investors include DFJ Element, RockPort Capital Partners, British Hazel Capital and CG Holding. They join existing investors Canica, Capricorn Investment Group and Wintergreen Advisers, among others (see entire statement here).

The cars will be priced at about $35,000. On top of that is an additional $100 to $150 monthly fee for the battery. To start with, the cars will be marketed in relatively small amounts in Europe

Ok, you’ve heard versions this headline before: “Investments in clean technologies doubled last year, compared to the year before.”

So far, definitions of clean technology have remained vague, and we’ve remained suspicious about the accuracy of industry data on investments in this area.

Today, Dow Jones Venture One has released a more precise definition of what “clean technology.” Earlier, the group also tightened the definition of “Web 2.0″ investments, which greatly improved upon previous efforts.

In 2006, venture investors pumped $1.28 billion into clean technology companies in China, Europe, Israel and the U.S., the group said today. That’s about double the $664.1 million invested in 2005, according to the research, which was compiled the data with help from Ernst & Young.

And here’s their definition:

Because of the significant level of attention being focused on cleantech, VentureOne’s research department adopted a strict methodology for categorizing potential companies in this new industry. They were defined as companies that directly enable the efficient use of natural resources and reduce the ecological impact of production. Areas of focus include energy, water, agriculture, transportation, and manufacturing where the technology creates less waste or toxicity. The impact of cleantech can be either to provide superior performance at lower costs or to limit the amount of resources needed while maintaining comparable productivity levels.

The most active global investors in cleantech in 2006 include Draper Fisher Jurvetson, DFJ Element, Khosla Ventures, Nth Power and Rockport Capital Partners.

See more info in the table below: