Sure, the government has spent a heap of money promoting hybrids and hydrogen fuel cells and other green car technologies. But it shouldn't come as a surprise to many that the federal government has a lot more to give away. One of the sessions at last week's EDTA conference was dedicated to find ways to pork out on these funds. Over 100 people came to listen to Kelly Carnes, of Techvision 21, give the skivvy on these grants, and here's what she had to say.

One of the most important sources of funding for advanced drive vehicles is the Department of Defense, Carnes said, "because the dollar amounts are quite large" (EDTA attendees UQM and Saft America have figured this out).

The next big thing the government is ready to roll out the funding red carpet for is nanotechnology, Carnes said. Nanotechnology is all about understanding and controlling matter at dimensions of roughly 1 to 100 nanometers, where unique phenomena enable novel applications. The funding for nanotechnology has gone from around $174 million to the billions since the Clinton era, and total U.S. government investment since 2001 is over $5 billion. But you can't just tell the government that you're working on nanotechnology and get a pile of money. Nothing is that easy. Carnes made clear that receiving federal grants is a complicated process, and because these funding opportunities are competitive and merit-based, there are a lot rules to follow. The grants need to be publicly advertised, and EV firms should look over broad agency announcements (BAA) and requests for proposals (RFP) for the notices. For example, in November, the Army put out a BAA in the vehicle technology area for the next five years. Alternatively, companies can try to arrange a Cooperative Research and Development Agreements (CRADA) with the government.

The rest of this story follows after the jump.