Red Herring reports that California is holding a competition to find local companies with the best new clean technologies, kind of like an X-Prize for cleantech. The California Clean Tech Open, conceived of by the MIT Club of Northern California and unveiled at the Cleantech Venture Forum today in San Francisco, has attracted a number of financial backers. The prize for best cleantech plan is $100,000 plus a year of free legal, accounting and PR services, not to mention office space. Four others will get $50,000 and the same perks.

Michael Santullo, co-chair of the competition, said it strikes the balance between large X-Prize type contests and smaller university contests that tend to focus less on business and more on technical and social aspects of a project.

A wonderful idea. And you never know, we could end up seeing an X-Prize for clean tech or energy. Click here and you’ll see that the X-Prize Foundation is accepting ideas for the next prize, building on the success of its space travel competition.

I’ve only got one request: That Cleantech Capital founder Nick Parker, inspired after his San Fran venture forum, come back home to Toronto and launch a Canadian Cleantech X-Prize contest. It can be turned into a TV show — like a cross between Canadian Idol and CBC’s Venture. I’m sure some specialty channel would lap it up.

Doesn’t hurt to nudge.

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