ExxonMobil is reportedly set to invest some of its record-breaking oil profits into cleantech technologies with plans for $325 million plant in South Korea that will make parts for lithium-ion batteries for cars. TonenGeneral Sekiyu K.K., ExxonMobil’s Japanese battery subsidiary, broke ground yesterday for a new the plant southeast of Seoul; it will manufacture the battery separator films that are critical to lithium battery development. Production, which is due to start next year, is expected to yield about 30 million square meters of film annually.

As demand for lithium-ion vehicular batteries has exploded, battery makers have been struggling to keep up. Currently many of the battery manufacturers in South Korea import their precious separator films from Japan. The country reportedly exported about 100 billion won (about $76 million) in 2006 to purchase those films. This new plant will provide much needed domestically produced film to South Korean battery makers like LG Chem, which has a contract with South Korea’s largest automaker, Hyundai, to provide next-gen lithium-ion batteries for Hyundai’s first hybrid, a Sonata sedan, expected in 2010.

ExxonMobil started showing off its new separator film at last year’s Electric Vehicle Symposium and Exposition and then debuted the latest iteration of the films specifically for vehicle batteries in May at the Advanced Automotive Battery Conference. The company says the film is made of high heat-resistant polymers allowing for safer, more efficient batteries.

Bob Metcalfe, the father of Ethernet and founder of 3Com, has been mining the “rich vein” of Internet history to inform the next generation of energy technology — or “enertech” (energy technology), as he likes to call it. In an article in Scientific American this month, Metcalfe, who now heads up energy investments for Polaris Venture Partners, outlines these four lessons for keeping energy innovation on track:

1) Don’t stick to hard-and-fast categories: The divide between telecommunications and computing — voice and data — has blurred as communications networks have merged to provide both. It’s a blurring, Metcalfe says, that should be kept in mind when it comes to energy definitions like “feed,” “food” and “fuel” — just look at corn ethanol.

2) Obey the laws: Metcalfe created Metcalfe’s Law, which calculates the value of the network effect on computing; the future of clean power generation will be distributed and networked as well, he says. The development of the Internet also revealed that users’ desire for bandwidth is insatiable and building the Internet was not about conserving bandwidth, he says. Likewise consumers will have an unending desire for energy and the energy crisis will not be solved through conservation.

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There is so much bad news spinning out of the financial markets these days that it might be hard to spare a few moments for carbon trading markets. But the dramatic freezing up of credit around the world may threaten to spill over into the nascent market for trading carbon emissions, with potential further consequences for the global climate. Or that is at least an idea that is beginning to emerge this week.

A commentator for Reuters argued that any initial expectations that money looking for a safe haven from the stock market in the carbon markets ought to be abandoned for now. The market’s lack of history and its complex framework are making investors balk, according to some of those interviewed.

“The market is uncorrelated with equities. That may make it a safe haven, but people are not rushing into it because the technical barrier is too high,” said Frederic Brodach, portfolio management director of Dexia Carbon Fund Managers. “The carbon market is just as risky as the turmoil going on in equities. It’s new, people don’t fully understand it, and there’s a lot of political risk,” said Trevor Sikorski, carbon analyst at Barclays Capital.

The overall emissions-trading market, valued at $13 billion, allows large companies to invest in clean energy projects in exchange for offset credits they could either put toward emission targets or trade on the market.

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The wind energy industry, perhaps the most mature cleantech sector, is truly global in scope. Just look at the wind energy news stories coming across the wire today. Here’s a roundup of recent wind energy plays from all over the world:

Ethiopia Signs $285M Deal for Huge Wind Farm: The Ethiopian Electric Power Corporation (EEPCo) signed a €210 million ($285 million) deal with French wind turbine maker Vergnet today for 120 1-megawatt wind turbines. This is a huge project for the developing country, potentially representing 15 percent of EEPCo’s present capacity. Delivery of the turbines is scheduled to start next year with construction to be completed by 2011. The utility will finance the project with two complementary loans from European banks, including the French Development Agency.

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Telecommunications provider Ericsson is putting some wind power into its network with a new radio communications tower unveiled today. The Swedish telecom partnered with turbine maker Vertical Wind AB and Uppsala University in Sweden to incorporate a vertical-axis wind turbine into the tower that houses radio base stations and antennas. The tower is now undergoing trials to see if the design will enable low-cost mobile communications to spread throughout remote regions with minimal environmental impact.

The rig is a conceptual riff on Ericsson’s energy-lean Tower Tube design. Ericsson has greatly reduced the station’s power demand, eliminating the need for feeders and cooling systems and slashing energy consumption up to 40 percent, the company says.

It’s not clear how much of the tower’s energy needs will be fulfilled by the turbine but it will likely need to be grid-connected to ensure a stable signal, because of wind’s intermittent nature, although it could use an energy storage system in far-flung locals. Still, the idea of greening our communications networks with windmills makes a lot sense. If we’re putting up these tall towers anyway, why not slap a turbine on them? We just hope it works as well as it sounds.

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This afternoon, California Arnold Schwarzenegger plans to officially dedicate the 2 MW solar system that covers carports down at Applied Material’s Sunnyvale, Calif., office. The solar system was completed in late September and at the time was touted as “the largest solar power deployment at a corporate facility in the United States.” Schwarzenegger is also using the opportunity to give a keynote address to an investor forum showing investors and companies how they can partner with California to boost cleantech in the state.

California is already leading the cleantech boom in the United States. According to the Cleantech Group, California-based startups brought in a record $1.1 billion in 35 investments in the third quarter of this year, which was 42 percent of U.S cleantech investments and was more than the total investments in Europe, China and India combined. At the same time Silicon Valley is quickly turning into Solar Valley, with startups like Nanosolar and SoloPower building plants in San Jose and venture capitalists investing massive funds into Bay Area companies like Solyndra and Miasole.

Applied Materials isn’t a startup, of course, but the chip equipment maker has been betting on the gear that makes solar in a big way. President and CEO Mike Splinter, who will also be speaking at the event this afternoon, announced the company’s move into PV manufacturing equipment back in late 2006. Since then the company has been buying up smaller solar hardware makers (spending around $1 billion on acquisitions) and some analysts predict that the company’s solar revenue could reach $1.2 billion next year.

The Seattle Steam Co. broke ground this week on a new district heating plant, which will burn waste wood from construction and demolition debris, along with natural gas, to create steam. The plant will replace the existing natural-gas fired system, which serves approximately 9 million square feet in the city’s central business district, according to the Seattle Times.

District energy projects, which generate steam or hot water in a central facility and pipe it to a network of nearby buildings where it is used for central space and/or water heating, are nothing new. Seattle Steam’s existing system has been operating since 1894 and the industry’s trade association will celebrate it’s centennial anniversary next year. But the technology is heating up across North America, as cities recognize its potential to reduce their carbon footprints.

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A day after bearish notes from three securities analysts pushed already beaten-down solar stocks even further downward, one solar company fought back with sunnier guidance than analysts had been expecting.

LDK, a Xinyu City, China-based maker of multicrystalline solar wafers, boosted its outlook for the third quarter. It now expects to see revenue for the quarter coming in between $530 million and $540 million. Previously, its guidance had called for revenue between $486 million and $496 million. The midpoint of the new guidance marks a 9 percent improvement over the old figure and a 10 percent premium over the consensus.

The company had more good news for investors. It said wafer shipments were between 230 megawatts and 240 megawatts in the quarter, up from 210 megawatts-220 megawatts. And it had reached its estimated wafer production capacity of 1.2 gigawatts by the end of September, a full quarter ahead of schedule. Xiaofeng Peng, LDK’s CEO, said in a statement:

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The world’s oceans are an energetic place, and military-industrial giant Lockheed Martin said today it has been granted $1.2 million by the Department of Energy to demonstrate that ocean thermal energy conversion is possible. Although the ocean often doesn’t feel very warm, the temperature gradient between the warm, sun-soaked surface and the frigid, dark depths provides enough of a differential to run a heat engine. The idea has been kicking around for over a century but has never been scaled. Lockheed Martin helped build the largest ocean thermal energy conversion system to date back in the 80s, but it only ever produced 50,000 watts, or .05 megawatts.

For those who aren’t so up on their thermodynamics, whenever you have a temperature gradient, there is accessible energy to be had. Ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC) works best when there’s a temperature difference of at least 20 degrees Celsius. Waters of two different temperatures are pumped through a heat exchanger which vaporizes and then condenses the water, producing energetic steam in the process.

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Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information — be it via search, email, online maps or mobile apps — but it could someday help you manage your daily energy consumption, too. At a speech at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco last week, Google CEO Eric Schmidt said that as part of its recently announced collaboration with GE, the search engine giant is currently looking at designing tools to help consumers understand their energy consumption. Google has also been actively looking at utilities’ smart meter projects, he said, and at using its strong connection with consumers to play a role in consumer energy management.

In fact, out of all of Google’s grand energy schemes, among them its $4.4 trillion energy proposal, its $45 million investment into energy-related startups and its plug-in vehicle project, energy data management could be one of the only places where Google plans to generate revenues. Schmidt said during his speech that there is an internal debate going on at the company as to how much of its energy initiatives will turn into real revenues, but that, “[T]o the degree that we can be in the information businesses or communications businesses about energy and its impact on the world, we are clearly going to be there.”

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