Oil Giant BP to Give $500 Million to UC Berkeley for Biofuels Research
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A controversy is brewing at the University of California in Berkeley where petroleum giant BP, formerly British Petroleum, is planning to give $500 million in funds to the university for research. The deal would fund the development of "sustainable, commercially viable, and environmentally friendly" sources of energy. The newly created Energy Biosciences Institute claims to promote research into biofuels, as well as bacteria that would increase energy production from oil and coal.
AMY GOODMAN: Now, the issue of BP giving this enormous sum of money, $500 million over the next ten years, is this of concern to you, the issue of the privatization of a public institution?
DANIEL KAMMEN: Well, I think that the size of the grant can be a concern, but not for the reasons that you’re raising. I actually think that this amount of money is relatively small change, both for the oil industries around the world and, in fact, for the amount of money it takes to bring new products to market. New cars and new drugs frequently take that much money -- half a billion dollars -- to bring them to market. And as a research pot of money to start with, I actually don’t regard it as that much money.
AMY GOODMAN: Professor Altieri, your concerns?
MIGUEL ALTIERI: Well, my concerns is that, first of all, Professor Kammen is saying, it’s very little money, and eventually it’s little money for BP, but a lot of money for UC Berkeley. And what they’re going to do with this money is basically skim off what 200 years of public investment has done. It would be very expensive for BP to build a university and a research facility. They will come with $500 million. They skim off what the public university has built over years, and then they bring fifty scientists from BP that are going to have access to students, and so therefore what they’re going to do is influence the research agenda of the public university. And it’s already happening.
What are your thoughts on BP who are now calling themselves "Beyond Petroleum" being given full access to a public institution to which they've given huge monetery funds?
Any concerns as where or to what extent this might influence a corporation like Oil Giant BP to Give $500 Million to UC Berkeley for Biofuels Research change universities into researching their views? You can watch/listen or read the full discussion from Democracy Now.
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*MUSIC IS the expression of EMOTION.....and that POLITICS IS merely the DECOY of PERCEPTION*
.....song_Music & Politics....Michael Franti
*The scientists of today think deeply instead of clearly. One must be sane to think clearly, but one can think deeply and be quite INSANE*....Nikola Tesla(a man who shaped our world of electricity with his futuristic inventions)
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Comments
Maybe that's what this development is looking at, however I don't know how much energy one can squeeze out of a kernel of corn without splitting atoms.
and reveling in it's loyalty. It's made by forming coalitions
over specific principles, goals, and policies.
http://i36.tinypic.com/66j31x.jpg
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But isn't that why we do research to begin with? Learn more, improve conventional knowledge, technology... problem solving?
I'm not sure what all of the hullaballoo is about unless BP is trying to run all of Berkleys research programs and lead them to whatever they want. That would be a conflict of interest.
It seems like there is more of an issue with private investment here than an actual problem at this point, I don't see why they can't just appoint a department dean to oversee research and what is being done and insure there is no conflict of interest and all is on the up and up.
A lot of this has to do with general hatred of corporations in the first place. They seem to think BP is trying to get cheap Biofuel research or something which they probably are, but it still could be benificial to all of us or worthless we don't quite know yet.
Well said. As long as the Universitry has over-sight and everything is transparent to the public eye I see no problem with this donation/investment. It just seems that some people will never be happy with the actions of a corporation, specially an oil corporation. They hammer on about how the oil industry is not doing enough to research and develope alternative fuels and when a company does make a step towards that goal they question their motives.
why would you turn this into a negative?
no "good" corporation ever gets railed upon ... they get lauded ... although unfair to paint the entire oil industry with a broad brush - they particularily get it bad because they deserve it ... these are trillion dollar industries where $500 million (although a large sum) isn't really a whole lot to them especially if the motivation is marked for PR reasons ...
it's like a pedophile who decides to donate money to a day care service ... sometimes you have to judge the act within an entire context ...
Like I said some people will never be satisfied. While the oil industry may deserve much of the criticism it receives why not just applaud the action of BP for doing the right thing, regardless of it's a PR move or a sincere one. The purpose behind the action will not dilute the good that can come from said action.
Like you senerio of the phedophile donating to a day care. The phedophile is not forgiven for his past crimes because of his charitable donation but the donation still serves a good purpose regardless of the donor and his/her actions.
I get that, hell Mike Vick sent 10 grand to Va Tech, I'm not calling him a good person either but 500 million in a research grant is going to employ a great number of young brilliant minds for a long time. I'm not saying BP is somehow great for doing this (PR is a joke do things the right way and you can dispense with the plesantries) I just think this is the means to an end. A lot of really really smart people are now going to be working towards a solution, hopefully Biofuels research still means they can also explore hydrogen, boron and new breakthroughs. Generally it does, but that's why you need an independant board overseeing the research money. No one wants it wasted.
Yeah it's a relatively small investment for BP but very large for a great number of people at a great public research institution. I'm not saying yay BP in this sense I'm saying yay Berkley, yay research. 500 million is a lot more than a feigned attempt at only PR. It's a committment to several years of good solid well funded research. I'm glad that BP is doing it, I hope they are investing in safety and cleaner development at the other end.
I really think at this point, they are making a clear attempt at bio fuel research wheras before there hasn't been much market for it. I think they are trying to position themselves as a leader in this market should it become profitable.
if you owned a day care - would you accept that money from the pedophile?
Yes. Maybe it was his/her way of repenting for their crimes.
yeah ... my comment was related to why some corporations get criticized ... as far as this specific grant goes - if the money doesn't compromise the intergrity of the institution nor its own vision then i'm all for it ...
i would love to see BP also spend a bit more money as to avoid the spills they are having in their plants in alaska and use their influences as it pertains to the human rights abuses in their pipeline in azerbajan ...
fair enough ... to me you can't buy forgiveness ...
I agree you can't buy forgiveness but you can at least take the appropriate steps to amend your past crimes/indiscretions.
absolutely ... but if i owned a day care - i don't need the baggage of having it being funded by a convicted pedophile ...
similarily - if i was a parent of a child who had been molested - i can't imagine how insulting that would be ...
but again - that's me ... i see your point and respect it completely ...
I'm under the impression that there is only a certain amount of energy that can be harvested from the bio fuel process per given crop choice. I could be wrong but I think they've already looked max and min expectations...perfect case scenarios, 100% return on growth estimates etc... and have found that it would be a losing equation.
I could be mistaken.
and reveling in it's loyalty. It's made by forming coalitions
over specific principles, goals, and policies.
http://i36.tinypic.com/66j31x.jpg
(\__/)
( o.O)
(")_(")
I don't see the problem... it's not like all of a sudden you or your daycare would be more receptive to pedophiles or do anything to help them just because one gave you a bunch of money? Maybe your public perception woudl take a hit for a little bit, but if the money is used to make improvements for the children, that PR backlash would be very short lived.
Same thing with BP... as long as the university has oversight, I think that this is a good thing (and money that the university can definitely use)
Maybe BP is the first of the oil companies that realizes that there is a lot of money (and the survival of their company) at stake for being on the leading edge of alternative fuels.
was like a picture
of a sunny day
“We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses.”
― Abraham Lincoln
you're absolutely right with current science, I'm not saying this is a "solution" at all, but we are only talking 500 million dollars here, these are those drops in the bucket research dollars so to speak, nich markets. Like Brazil where sugar cane fuel seems to work a little bit. They need to resarch the small time stuff now, how can we get more energy out of refuse plant materials etc. that kind of thing. It's not just the macro fuel replacement... Imagine fuel supplements or say getting farm equipment or off road vehicles on bio diesel. It all adds up. We don't currently have a whole lot of expert scientists working solely on fuels and we are ridiculously behind, they are looking at future markets here I'm pretty sure how to get more out of what is available too them. What worries me about this is continuing to do this kind of thing stupidly, buldozing coastal wetlands etc (previously unairable land to grow sugarcane for instance while ignoring that these areas serve as storm surge barriers etc.
Hopefully because they are doing this in such a prestigous and "environment consious" institution such as berkley, the students and faculty will make sure the research and the results work on par with sound environmental practices. It actually makes good future business sense to spend the money at Berkley partly due to this.
What I'm hoping is that Chevron, Hanjin, Exxon, Texaco etc follow suit that's where the economic push will come to get more and more research behind clean fuels and much more efficient use of the fossil fuels we have.
Tell me about it. How about a freaking 500M grant to several technical institutes and develop some corrosion engineers....
Not to mention spending money to make their facilities efficient adequate and safe.
I'm amazed that when any person or company makes a half billion dollar donation for research over a ten year period that people complain. That's so absurd. Here they are doing something towards finding a solution and someone like you who supposedly supports the environment goes "this sucks". It doesn't suck, it's a step forward and should be viewed as one.
when it hits you, you feel to pain.
So brutalize me with music.”
~ Bob Marley
maybe you should read the entire thread ... i for one wasn't complaining - as is clear by my initial post to paco ... my initial comment was related to why some people continue to put pressure on corporations ...
but then again - this isn't the first time you've made that assumption about me nor do i feel it will be your last ...
We fail to understand the way they will do more is to charge more at the pump in order to have more money to donate. It's not going to come out of their bottom line. We fail to understand that a higher pump price hurts those who can least afford it in society. But heaven forbid that we ever actually take responsibility for our actions and do things like demand that we pay more taxes or demand that we give more to university research endowment funds.
when it hits you, you feel to pain.
So brutalize me with music.”
~ Bob Marley
sure seems it was directed at me ...
would taking responsibility for our own actions entail the oil industry pay for their pollution and toxic waste?
This was the type initiative I was looking for Kyoto to result in and not the one sided trade agreement they came up with.
I think we need to stop holding up the oil industry as the bogie man. The bogie man is you and and I, the consumers who use these products and demand the lowest price possible. I don't give a fuck if that means we pay $5.00 a litre for gas, but just make sure that we provide dedicated tax dollars funding solutions. Bring on a country (and hopefully all countries in Kyoto or taking part in IPPC discussions) wide enviro levee based on true cost of production, distribution and selling costs to the environment. But it has to hit the consumer. It will hurt but it is the only solution I've ever seen that stands a hope in hell of doing anything.
One oddity and I'm not sure if you caught it was that Canada's industrial greenhouse gas emissions went down by 0.3% last year. I'll see if I can still find an active link.
when it hits you, you feel to pain.
So brutalize me with music.”
~ Bob Marley
Our output has held steady for a couple years and even gone down slightly in 2006 and output per GDP$ has gone down.
http://www.canada.com/topics/news/story.html?id=2beed7af-c44d-48ef-b96b-97c0342e7430&k=9855
Funny what makes the headline news versus reality versus government doubletalk versus enviro group doubletalk.
when it hits you, you feel to pain.
So brutalize me with music.”
~ Bob Marley
sorry ... i don't see any reductions ... simply that some industries indicated reductions ...
as you can see - alberta continues to lead all the growth in emissions which is why this particular gov't isn't going to do anything about it ... any comparison relative to GDP is delusional ... we need an overall reduction of greenhouse gases - not relative to GDP ...
and as much as i agree with your proposal for taxation and relative competitive policies - we will never agree on your beliefs about kyoto ... like i've said previously - that watered down treaty at least aimed to give us benchmarks to do something ... the continued haggling over wording has accomplished nothing for us ... our trend is still on the rise and we have no plan in place nor will we ever have one with this gov't ...