While nuclear giant Areva declined to disclose how much it plans to pay for solar thermal startup Ausra this week, the deal speaks volumes about greentech exits (or a lack there of) as well as the solar thermal industry.

For several of the venture capitalists who collectively invested close to $130 million into Ausra, including Kleiner Perkins and Khosla Ventures, this week’s deal marks one of their first exits in the greentech industry. If you check out Kleiner and Khosla’s portfolio companies on their websites, no other startups have been disclosed to have been bought or gone public (if Silver Spring Networks or Amyris go public Kleiner will have some big ones coming soon).

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The famously private investor David Gelbaum, founder of The Quercus Trust, and who by his own estimates has between 40 and 50 cleantech investments, as a rule hasn’t done interviews for years. According to the last comprehensive story on him, published in the LA Times in 2004, the former math whiz, hedge fund manager and philanthropist, is so anonymous he’s sometimes mistaken for his gardener. But this afternoon, on the heels of Gelbaum accepting the role of CEO of one of his portfolio companies Entech Solar (the first time he’s taken over as CEO), Gelbaum got on the phone with us to chat about the potential of solar, how he’s lost money in greentech so far, and his focus on making some returns.

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Whoa — big news on the solar thermal front today, as French power giant Areva says it’s agreed to buy solar thermal startup Ausra. Back in November there were several media reports that said Ausra was in talks to be acquired by one of three companies, and it looks like Areva won the deal. Terms of the acquisition weren’t disclosed.

Areva, which has a large nuclear portfolio, says it will use the Ausra acquisition to become “the world leader in concentrated solar power,” and will sell solar thermal tech to utilities and independent power producers. Solar thermal technology uses mirrors and lenses to concentrate the sun rays to power turbines, and utilities have been turning to it in droves as of late.

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The end goal of AMEE is for everyone and every organization to know their complete energy use, or their “energy identity,” explained Gavin Starks, CEO of the web services platform that helps track and measure carbon consumption, at our Green:Net 2009 conference last year. To help reach that vision and expand the amount of enterprise carbon accounting firms that use its engine, AMEE has been raising funding and this morning announced that it has raised $5.5 million in a Series B funding round led by Amadeus Capital Partners and including O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures and Union Square Ventures.

AMEE, which originally stood for Avoiding Mass Extinctions Engine, was launched by Starks back in 2007 and has now amassed a customer list including the UK Government’s Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC), SAS, Morgan Stanley, Google, Radiohead and Sun. AMEE’s platform is an open API that aggregates the information needed to monitor carbon emissions and perform carbon calculations for the user. By using a standard methodology and set of data to measure carbon footprints, AMEE can make this nascent practice more reliable, trusted and transparent and perhaps one day lead to the integration of validated carbon information into profiles of everything from goods to actions to people.

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If you can’t recall the collective anxiety that is attached to the emergence of digital and networked technologies just take a peek back at the news headlines of yesteryear. The fear over computerized voting systems started soon after the 2000 U.S. presidential election debacle, while worry about online banking began when the first bank put its customer accounts on the web. But as the latest systems, including vehicles and the power grid, crossover to the digital and computing world, and get connected to communication networks, expect the same, if not more, fear.

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Electric vehicle infrastructure company Better Place has a lot of work to do before it commercially launches its first networks of battery swap and charging stations in Israel and Denmark next year. But this weekend the company took a couple steps forward in Israel. First, Better Place announced the opening of a slick demonstration center in Israel built on top of a gasoline storage and distribution center, inside a refurbished oil tank (see photos). The company also announced partnerships with gas station operator Dor Alon and additional corporate customers that have pledged to swap portions of their fleets with Renault electric vehicles next year.

As you can see from the photos the demo center is pretty swanky. It’s meant to be used as outreach for both potential Israeli customers, as well as international visitors, and features a multi-media center, a driving track, and will eventually have demos of the Renault Fluence.

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When Energy Secretary Steven Chu fast-tracked the long-stalled $25 billion dollars in loans and loan guarantees, created as part of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 and appropriated by Congress in 2006, it was a breath of fresh air for the clean power and green transportation sectors. But how long do government-backed loan guarantees actually take to get the wheels turning on helping a company raise funds?

More than a year — at least in the case of cellulosic ethanol startup Range Fuels. In January 2009 the company secured a conditional commitment for an $80 million loan guarantee from the U.S. Department of Agriculture out of the 2008 Farm Bill. And according to an SEC filing this week, Range Fuels has just filed to raise that $80 million in debt financing to build out its first commercial plant in Soperton, Georgia.

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Hack-A-Credit: Last week hackers broke into online accounts and stole and resold carbon credits, according to the German newspaper Der Spiegel — Wired.

The Yes Men @ Davos: Ha, ha. Supposedly the Yes Men put up this dubbed video of ADM CEO Patricia Woertz speaking from World Economic Forum — Grist.

Power Plants As Cap & Trade Guinea Pig?: “[S]enators are studying whether power plants should be the guinea pig industry for the nation’s first cap-and-trade system designed to curb greenhouse gas emissions.” – New York Times, ClimateWire.

BYD’s E-6 Emerges As Chinese Cab: BYD fulfilled most of 100-vehicle order for the Shenzhen Taxi Company — AutoblogGreen.

It Was The Software!: Ford says it will upgrade the braking software on its Ford Fusion and Mercury Milan hybrids after a problem was discovered with braking according to Consumer Reports. Cars aren’t so good with beta releases. — Wall Street Journal.

Given that a U.S. carbon cap-and-trade system appears increasingly unlikely in the near term, what’s the next best way to boost the domestic renewable energy industry and deliver green jobs? According to a study done by Navigant Consulting on behalf of the renewable energy industry group, Renewable Electricity Standard Alliance for Jobs, the answer is: a national renewable energy standard. Specifically one requiring every state to get 25 percent of its power from renewable resources by 2025.

A nationwide standard would result in 274,000 more jobs around the country than sticking to the status quo, and will be needed to help stave off job declines expected to come in the short term as tax incentives and stimulus funding for U.S. renewables start to slack off, the report found.

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When I think about smart grid security I get a tired-feeling like I’m being forced to watch the Bachelor on TV. That’s because the debate is largely over around how important it is (it is very), the U.S. government and standards bodies are taking it extremely seriously, and it’s clear that many companies are looking to the IT industry for cues on the architecture.

So what’s left to talk about then?: The money. A report from Pike Research predicts that utilities will spend $21 billion on smart grid cyber security between 2010 and 2015. Pike says utilities will spend the most on protecting distribution automation systems and transmission upgrades, followed by smart meter infrastructure.

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