Mitsubishi Materials Corp, Electric Power Development Co, or J-Power, Nittetsu Mining Co Ltd and Kyushu Electric Power Co are stepping up efforts with the help of Tokyo to make more geothermal power stations.

Why not? Japan has more than its share of active volcanoes. And Japan needs a home grown source of energy. What’s more, geothermal power plants emit far less CO2.

Mitsubishi and J-Power will dumb Y40billon ($420m) to construct a georthermal power plant in Yuzawa in Akita. The facility will tap hot water and steam around 2000 meters below the surface by 2016.

Japan’s METI has set up a group to figure out how to help these companies to their thing, including financial support.

In the 70’s – think oil crisis – geothermal plants got a hot spurt, but nuclear power stations won out.

Japan has 18 geothermal plants that account for about 0.2% of electicity in the country. Japan!? Can you say Iceland?

So, I wonder. How many points does Google want for throwing pocket change at an alternate fuel technology? The giant search engine machine pledged “10 million U.S. dollars in Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS) technology, as part of its Renewable Energy Cheaper than Coal initiative. ”

Two geothermal tech start-ups and a university will benefit from the grant. “EGS expands the potential of traditional geothermal energy by orders of magnitude,” said Google.org. EGS has the potential to provide clean renewable electricity 24/7, at a cost cheaper than coal.

AltaRock (cool name will get you money) Energy will get $6.25 million and Potter Drilling will get $4.25 million. SMU will get a grant of $489,521 (nice round number). Australia, Germany and the European Union are the technology leaders.  All 50 states have thermal resources accessible by EGS. Just gotta dig down and plug in. Or we can Iceland and/or Mitsubishi to see how they do it.

But, $10 million from a company that makes a profit of over $1 billion quarterly. That’s like a man with $4,000 to do go with giving away just $10 and hoping to make a difference.