Not far from the frozen tundra, green technological cooperation between Russia and China is heating up.

A technology transfer plan between the 11 year-old Chinese company Thunder Sky Energy Group and Russia's state-run agency for encouragement of nanotechnology, RusNano, will lead to joint production of Lithium-ion batteries for many industrial uses.

In energy and telecoms as well as the most prominent Lithium-ion target sector—electric vehicles—Russian production will ramp up with Chinese assistance.

The production facilities will be built in the Siberian city of Novosibirsk (literally, "New Siberian") and will add to Thunder Sky's output capacity while creating some 500 jobs in Russia and giving Moscow-led investment arm RusNano a quick start toward Russian prominence in the high-tech battery sector.

Just under $500 million in investment in 2010 and 2011 will draw more than $500 million in sales by 2011, it is hoped.

Russian project heads plan to use local materials and local labor to build on Thunder Sky's production model and solidify eastern Russia as an efficient production base that can serve both Asian and European markets with lithium batteries.

You can learn more about Lithium-ion batteries and their role in electric vehicle development here in the Green Chip Stocks archive.

-Sam Hopkins