BP Awards $500M for Biofuel Research

Energy giant BP has announced that the University of California at Berkeley, in partnership with the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, will receive a total of $500 million to host a research center dedicated to developing biofuel technologies. The Energy Biosciences Institute (EBI) will conduct both basic and applied biological research relevant to energy. BP and the university plan to launch research programs this summer.

 

UC Berkeley was one of five universities around the world invited to apply when BP announced last July that that the company would dedicate $500 million over the next 10 years to a biofuels research facility. Other applicants included UC San Diego, UIUC, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge University, and Imperial College London. To improve the bid from the California universities, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's proposed budget for fiscal year 2008 includes $40 million in lease revenue to support the research center if either of the two California institutions won. The state also plans to contribute $70 million to build a headquarters for the institute, which will temporarily be housed within existing buildings on campus.

 

Researchers initially will focus on developing renewable fuels for automobiles. This work will incorporate many areas of research and will include creating new biofuel components and enhancing the efficiency of fuel blends, improving the existing technologies that convert organic matter into biofuels, and developing new plant species that produce a higher fuel yield. Later investigations will address the conversion of heavy hydrocarbons to clean fuels, improved recovery from existing oil and gas reservoirs, and carbon sequestration. Much of the research produced by the institute will be commercialized through BP Alternative Energy, an offshoot of the corporation launched in 2005. In addition, up to 50 BP personnel will be placed on the campuses to carry out the work of the institute.

 

UC Berkeley will host the majority of EBI’s 25 teams of researchers. BP Group CEO John Browne explained that UC Berkeley was chosen because of its strong track record of "big science,” or long-term research involving multiple teams of researchers across many disciplines. The university plans to house EBI in the same building as other ongoing energy research projects to encourage cross-disciplinary thinking.



In addition to biology and energy research, the initiative also will involve the social sciences and include a "social interactions and risks laboratory" to examine the role of the public in determining the path of energy policy and technological development, the public policy implications of genetically modified organic sources of energy, and the dissemination of knowledge about alternative energy.

 

Both UIUC and Berkley National Laboratory will receive additional BP funding and personnel to support research through the new institute. UIUC, which has thousands of available acres for cultivating plant matter for bioenergy, will act as a secondary site for research. UIUC plans to dedicate 340 acres of farmland to EBI research this year. Berkeley National Laboratory will expand its current alternative energy program to mesh with EBI and provide access to existing facilities and data. EBI activities also are expected to dovetail with the carbon neutral energy research conducted through Helios project at Berkeley Labs, which will receive $30 million from the state in FY 2008 and additional support from the U.S. Department of Energy.

 

Find out more about the Energy Biosciences Institute at: http://www.bp.com/sectiongenericarticle.do?categoryId=9009836&contentId=7018600