Had the pleasure of attending Ernst & Young's Cleantech Ignition Session earlier this week in NYC. An invite-only group of about 30-40 transportation industry participants, including representatives from government and inside the beltway, from transportation OEMs and suppliers, and from the investment community. The topic: "Leveraging cleantech to build a sustainable advantage in transportation." E&Y will be writing up a report on the session for later release, and until then, what was said in the room stays in the room. But there were a number of very good thoughts in the wide-ranging, open discussion, and some compelling ideas. I'll highlight one in particular, just because it was said by me, so no disclosure problems here (sorry, but you'll have to wait to read about all the more insightful comments made by other participants): It seems to me that the auto industry has a very intriguing opportunity right now to use all of the recent entrepreneurial and investment activity in clean transportation tech to their benefit. This opportunity could help them address the evident "gap" between highly innovative demonstration vehicle programs, and the historically slow pace of adoption of core innovations into mass-production models. It's no surprise that such a gap would exist. It's relatively inexpensive for such large organizations to spend money on onesy-twosey demonstration vehicle programs where the engineers can play around with new technologies to see what might work. But scale-driven economics means that, in order to get costs down, standardization and large production runs have to be the operational model. And it's a huge gamble to integrate a very core, and very different, technology into a large production run vehicle. So it's relatively easy to do something very unique at the demo level, it's almost impossible to get someone to take a potentially Career-Limiting Move of integrating new tech into a full-scale production vehicle, and there's no in-between. But now there's an in-between. Outside the OEMs themselves. But instead, in the entrepreneurial efforts out there. And during a time when auto R&D budgets are being slashed, the transportation industry is possibly being turned on its head, and public (and regulatory) pressure are mounting for greener options to be seriously pursued, it's time for the auto industry to more actively engage. Auto OEMs could be meeting with, challenging, investing in, and co-investing with the cleantech VC community. What the chemicals, forest products, and many other industries have found is that the venture community can be an important conduit for identifying and working on new innovations, large to small. And for getting a ring-side seat while those innovations are being tested in other early markets, proving themselves out. Likewise, the Auto OEMs could be collaborating or even partnering with some of the upstart OEMs being launched by entrepreneurs -- these small production volume plays will be a great early testing ground for innovations that then the incumbent OEMs could more confidently integrate into their own future products, but only if they get first-hand knowledge of what's working and what isn't. So it would have to be engineer-to-engineer collaborations, not just high-level PR events. There have been some early signs of the above shifts possibly starting to happen. But only starting to. It would be smart for Detroit to take on an even more deliberate commitment to engaging the venture and entrepreneurial communities around serious innovation efforts. Deals from the past few days:

• Rubber recycler Lehigh Technologies raised an undisclosed (but "significant") amount of financing from Kleiner Perkins and Index Ventures, with the proceeds going to fund the building of a second plant next year (at a cost of $15mm) -- this, according to VentureWire. The company had previously raised more than $18mm from NGP Energy Technology Partners and others.

• Ensartech, which is developing a smelter-based waste conversion technology (perhaps akin to Ze-Gen's?), announced an undisclosed amount of investment from Netherlands-based Icos Capital.

• One deal where the amount WAS disclosed was Spectrawatt's $50mm round, led by Intel Capital, with participation by Goldman Sachs subsidiary Cogentrix Energy, PCG Clean Energy and Technology Fund, and German solar company Solon. The silicon-based PV manufacturer is a spin-out from Intel. Not to be outdone, IBM this week also announced plans to get into CIGS manufacturing via a JV with a Japanese partner. Interesting build vs. buy decisions evident in the solar industry right now...

Other news and notes: More on politics, since 'tis the season -- here's a recap on some recent developments out of the campaigns, related to cleantech... Cleantech cluster-building around the globe continues -- see The Nordic Green Network, and this interesting column tying climate change regulation in California to the growth in regional cleantech VC activity... Even Beaumont, TX is getting in on the action... "The anti-cluster-building" effort (in a good way) of the Virtual Energy Forum has finished for now, but you can still log on and view some of the happenings... Not sure I agree with all his sentiments (although I appreciated the kind blogger-to-blogger 'shout-out'), but Mark Modzelewski is certainly throwing down the gauntlet... Meanwhile the Cleantech Avenger wonders why we can't all just get along... EcoSearch donates your Google search generated ad revenue to green causes... Neal is looking for bloggers to join in with the HuffPo of cleantech... Finally, VentureBeat has word of a $3B cleantech private equity fund being raised.