Google, Masdar receive 2008 Cleantech Awards

What do a CEO from an oil producing nation and a self-described green energy czar have in common?

At the Cleantech Forum XVI San Francisco, both received awards for their contributions to the cleantech sector, joining previous honorees such as Wal-Mart and Sir Nicholas Stern. (Read more about the Cleantech Awards here.)

The annual Cleantech Corporation of the Year award went to Google (Nasdaq: GOOG), which Cleantech Group co-founder and chairman Nicholas Parker described in his preface remarks as a “company that’s begun to drive cleantech innovation in important ways.”

Among relevant projects being undertaken by Google are its ambitious effort to try to make renewable energy cheaper than coal (see Google creates renewable R&D group), work to make its data centers more energy efficient and to save energy on billions of users' computer desktops (see Green Grid joined by Climate Savers initiative from Google & Intel) and a multi-million dollar program to help accelerate plug-in hybrid vehicles technology borne out of a company skunkworks project (see Plug-in hybrids can Google for cash.)

“I think the work that you guys are doing and we’re doing and everyone’s been doing — some for far longer than us — is really great,” said Google’s Bill Weihl, Green Energy Czar [ed.: yes, that's what his business card says] accepting the award in front of a crowd of more than 900 industry influencers at the Cleantech Forum’s gala dinner this evening.

“But I really worry that if I think about the climate problem that it’s not enough, that it’s still not going to be enough. What can we do to scale faster, to make the cost of renewables go down faster? It’s a hard problem, and maybe it’s an impossible problem, but I think its one that we really need to figure out how to tackle.”

Weihl noted after the presentations that one project he considers “truly exciting” is his renewable-energy-cheaper-than-coal-industry initiative.

“There are a lot of things are going on at Google,” he said. “Wait three months and there’ll be another 15 projects that we’re doing.”

The Cleantech Leader of the Year Award was presented to Dr. Sultan al Jaber, CEO of the Masdar Initiative of the United Arab Emirates.

The name Masdar derives from the Arabic words for “power” and “source.”

In addition to earmarking the largest amount of money yet allocated by a government towards cleantech initiatives (see Abu Dhabi, the next cleantech hub?), Masdar is developing a 500 megawatt hydrogen-fired power plant for Abu Dhabi in partnership with the U.K.’s BP and Australia’s Rio Tinto, and is also accepting bids for a 100 MW solar power plant.

“When a leading Middle Eastern oil-producing emirate pledges $15 billion dollars to accelerate non hydrocarbon-based technologies, it’s clear that change is upon us, and that everyone in all quarters are now seeing opportunities in this change,” Cleantech Group's Parker noted in his remarks.

In his remarks, al Jaber recalled the beginning of the project, when people “questioned Masdar's sanity.”

“There were many skeptics then, as there are now,” he said, “but the man who says it can’t be done is usually passed by the man who is actually doing it.”

In explaining the Initiative’s drive to succeed, he used Abu Dhabi’s transformation from barren desert to “a modern, advanced and an open society” in less than 40 years, ascribing the change to “leaders with vision and tenacity.”

“This is a challenge we are willing to accept and this is an area where we believe we can excel,” he said.

Al Jaber also described the Initiative’s Masdar City project, which is projected to become the world's first zero-carbon, zero-waste, car-free city.

“We realize that these activities on their own are clearly insufficient to meet the scale of the problems facing our planet, which is why Masdar’s greatest hope, and our ultimate goal, is to inspire others to act,” he said in closing.

“I invite all of you to join us on this most remarkable journey.”

Simbol Mining Corporation also received an award during the evening, having been voted Most Promising Technology by Forum attendees. The company has developed a technique of extracting valuable commodity minerals and metals, such as the lithium in wide demand today for advanced batteries, from geothermal brines.

“We’re excited and passionate about our technology,” noted company CEO Luka Erceg. “We’re here to change the world, as most of you are, investing in this kind of technology.”

The Cleantech Group produces the Cleantech Forum XVI in San Francisco, which concludes tomorrow, and other Cleantech Forum events around the world.