BP and Biosciences – Big bucks for energy research – will it work?

This past week BP (British Petroleum) announced it had picked two universities to partner with in creating a biosciences research facility that would study the development of alternative fuel sources. The deal means $50 million in research funding over the next ten years to UC Berkeley and the University of Illinois. They held a grand press conference on Feb.1 at UC Berkeley that featured the governors of Illinois and California. BP spread the money far and wide to get the word out about their largess in this area. The press conference featured 11 speakers, a web cast, full national TV broadcast (four in house cameras, two satellite trucks, a production crew of over 20, and too many government and university egos to fit in one giant room).

There was a buzz in the air as the state and university folks were clearly slathering over the prospect of such a large grant to fund research and BP was clearly trying to buy some valuable exposure that would make big oil look like sound corporate citizens interested in looking into and developing alternative fuels.

Let’s be clear here though. NO tough questions were answered. In fact the press conference was more of a reading of speeches, and when it was time to ask questions from the media the poor chancellor got the script wrong and it all fell apart. The speakers wandered off and the press was left to scramble for their questions to be answered.

Nothing was mentioned about who retains any patents that might be derived from this research effort, or who drives the prominent research. BP still wants to figure out how to get more oil out of the ground than they do now and that might end up superseding biofuel efforts and research. The other big question is how valid is this effort. I mean do we see results in ten years that make a difference or does the private sector R&D blow right past this academic effort in the production of new biofuels?