Smart Energy News

Palo Alto, Calif. — Tesla Motors, the builder of high-performance electric cars, announced that it has purchased the factory in Fremont, Calif. where until last month Toyota produced its Corolla and Tacoma vehicles. The plant is capable of producing half a million vehicles per year, or about 1% of total worldwide car production, according to Tesla.

At the factory, Tesla plans to build its Model S sedan, which has an anticipated base price of about $50,000, including a federal tax credit. With an optional extended-range battery pack, the Model S will travel over 300 miles per charge, according to the company.

In connection with the factory deal, Toyota has agreed to invest $50 million of equity in Tesla, in a private placement to close immediately after Tesla’s currently planned initial public offering. In January, Tesla filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission for a planned initial public offering to raise an estimated $100 million.

Investors in Tesla include, among others, VantagePoint Venture Partners, Draper Fisher Jurveston, JP Morgan Bay Area Equity Fund, Elon Musk, founder of Paypal and CEO of SpaceX, and Sergey Brin and Larry Page of Google.

http://www.teslamotors.com/

La Jolla, Calif. – Synthetic Genomics Inc. (SGI), a privately held developer of biotechnology founded by the renowned genomics researcher J. Craig Venter, announced that it has created the first synthetic bacterial cell, a major milestone in its effort to produce solutions to energy and environment challenges.

Founded in 2005 and backed by major venture capital firms and Exxon Mobil, SGI has now developed what some are calling “the first artificial life form” by inserting a synthetic chromosome into a living bacterial cell, which took over the cell and became a new life form. Its researchers first created a synthetic chromosome in 2008 but were not able to activate it in a cell until now.

SGI’s main R&D and business programs include designing advanced biofuels; cultivating photosynthetic organisms to make products directly from sunlight and carbon dioxide; developing new biological solutions to increase production and/or recovery rates of subsurface hydrocarbons and developing high-yielding, disease resistant and economic feedstocks.

Aware of the potentially profound implications of its technology and apparently eager to defuse any public fear, SGI issued a statement emphasizing that it has “spent equal time focused on (societal and ethical) issues” as compared to the amount of time it has spent on technology development since its founding four years ago.

“The research at J. Craig Venter Institute has undergone significant review at the highest levels of science and government and SGI supports continued review and discussion of this growing area of science,” the company announced. “Dr. Venter and the team have met with Congressional members several times since the company’s formation to educate them on the field of synthetic genomics.”

SGI website

Chevy Chase, Md. — GeoGlobal Energy, a geothermal investment and development firm based in Maryland, announced on Thursday that it has become the largest investor in what it says it the first stand-alone, high temperature flash technology geothermal power project to be developed in 20 years in California’s Imperial Valley.

GeoGlobal is investing $90 million for the construction of the nearly $400 million Hudson Ranch project, becoming a 20% owner of EnergySource, a San Diego-based renewable energy firm founded by Catalyst Renewables and Hannon Armstrong.

The project will create 200 full-time equivalent construction jobs. When it’s completed in an expected 21 months, it will employ 35 full-time plant operations employees, according to the company.

Founded in 2007, GeoGlobal has a corporate office in the Washington, DC area, and a technical office in Santa Rosa, Calif. The company also has two international field offices in Santiago, Chile and Munich, Germany. GeoGlobal has reassembled many of the core members of Unocal’s resource development and geothermal finance teams from the 1980s and 1990s.

GeoGlobal Energy website

EnergySource website

Oakland, Calif. — Moving toward its goal of making solar energy a larger player in the world energy market, BrightSource Energy, a developer of utility-scale solar thermal power plants, announced on Thursday that it has raised $150 million in its fourth round of venture capital, bringing its total raised to date to more than $300 million.

BrightSource was founded in 2004. The company’s technology uses thousands of mirrors to reflect sunlight onto a central receiver atop a tower, producing high-temperature steam that is piped into a turbine and generator to make electricity.

The company said will use the new investment funds to build 14 solar power plants in the Southwest by 2016, supporting its contracts with Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) and Southern California Edison.

Investors in BrightSource include Alstom, Morgan Stanley, the California State Teachers Retirement System (CalSTRS), VantagePoint Venture Partners, and Draper Fisher Jurvetson.

BrightSource website

Troy, Mich. – EcoMotors, a Troy-based developer of high-efficiency engines, announced that it has raised $18 million from Global Optima and Zhongding Holding, a China-based maker of automobile parts, to fund further development of EcoMotors’ technology.

Founded in 2008 Vinod Khosla, a leading clean energy venture capitalist, EcoMotors is developing high-efficiency engines for use in cars, light trucks, marine applications, agricultural vehicles, and stationary generators.

The agreement with Zhongding and Global Optima will commit up to$18 million of advanced engineering, including refinement of EcoMotors’ existing EM100D diesel engine, and development of a smaller gasoline version, the EM65FF.

“Global Optima has expressed the possibility of direct equity investment in EcoMotors,” according to the announcement. “EcoMotors and Global Optima commit to cooperate with Zhongding with the intent of accelerating international commercialization of the (EcoMotors’) opoc technology.”

EcoMotors website