Campus May Compete to Host Energy Institute

UC Berkeley, in partnership with UC Davis and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, may have a unique opportunity to work toward the development and production of cleaner biofuels.

BP Amoco PLC has selected UC Berkeley, along with a handful of other research universities across the country and in Britain, to compete for the opportunity to host its planned Energy Biosciences Institute.

The company, which is one of the largest energy distributors in the world, plans to fund the institute with $500 million over the next 10 years.

"By creating this integrated and dedicated research center, we plan to harness a technical discipline with enormous potential to provide new energy solutions," said BP Chief Executive Lord John Browne in a statement.

But UC Berkeley spokesperson Robert Sanders said the university will not decide whether or not to compete for the institute until the expectations for the selected university are made clear.

"Because we don't know what BP wants, until they put out the details, we don't know if we're going to apply for it," Sanders said. "It depends on if what they want fits the priorities of the faculty."

Campus departments have recently been informed of the opportunity and have been asked to submit research ideas that could potentially relate to the institute by Sept. 20, Sanders said.

This is not the first time UC Berkeley has collaborated with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory or UC Davis, Sanders said.

"We have a very close relationship with (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory)," Sanders said. "We're a lot closer to Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory but many of our faculty collaborate with UC Davis faculty."

The institute would be run by researchers from the host university, laboratory, or other academic institutions, in cooperation with specialists from the company, according to Scott Dean, a spokesperson for BP.

The energy distributor has been in discussions with institutions located across the United States and Britain to host the institution, including Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Iowa State University.

"We're excited about the (Energy Biosciences Institute) and we are looking at a number of universities to locate it," Dean said.

BP currently has several international research programs at universities, including the Carbon Mitigation Initiative at Princeton University and Clean Energy research at Tsinghua University in China.

UC Berkeley, in conjunction with the California Institute of Technology, already houses the Methane Conversion Cooperative Project for BP, which is a $20 million, 10-year program.

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