Cal Neighbors

The future is looking brighter since the announcement of UC Berkeley's winning energy research proposal in February. That was when global energy firm BP selected UC Berkeley and its partners, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, for an unprecedented $500 million strategic partnership to research and develop alternative fuels. The goal of the groundbreaking public-private alliance: to develop new sources of energy that will have less impact on the environment.

The research contract will create a new Energy Biosciences Institute focusing on research for biofuels that transform plant materials into sources of fuel. The institute will also look at ways to produce alternative fuels and use existing energy sources in ways that are less environmentally damaging.

Because of its far-reaching implications, the announcement also places Berkeley at the forefront of the global agenda. "This is our generation's moon shot," said UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau.

A Compelling Proposal
UC Berkeley, in partnership with LBNL, was one of five universities invited by BP last year to submit a proposal for an institute that would conduct research aimed at developing new, cleaner energy sources. According to Birgeneau, UC Berkeley's reputation as a university with "extraordinary talent . . . in science and engineering," along with the combined strengths of the university and LBNL in areas such as molecular biology, bioengineering, synthetic biology and environmental policy, were key deciding factors.

By partnering with the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Berkeley was able to harness the strengths of that campus in genetics, agronomy and sustainable agricultural practices.

In addition, the Bay Area backdrop was key because of the region's start-up mentality. "No matter what the energy solution is, it will need industries that support it," Birgeneau noted. "The Bay Area is optimal for that — we have proven before and we will prove again that this is a great place for creating all kinds of new businesses to support these technologies."

A Focus on Energy Self-sufficiency
The new institute will take a multidisciplinary approach to researching alternative energy sources. As Birgeneau explained: "A number of Berkeley faculty were already beginning to turn their research toward addressing energy issues when this opportunity for resources came along. It is not just biofuels — there are many other alternative energy approaches. For example, with LBNL, we have a major proposal in to the Department of Energy under the rubric of the Helios project [a multidisciplinary research effort to develop alternatives to fossil fuels] for support for other approaches to energy self-sufficiency . . . Our plan is that Helios, EBI, and many of these other efforts will all be in one building. So this is going to be a phenomenal place with a variety of important research addressing energy self-sufficiency."

Ecological issues and social science concerns — such as the societal and ethical implications of alternative fuel sources — will also be part of the institute's focus. "Berkeley has the biggest collection of social scientists actively interested in the environment of any university in the world," said Dan Kammen, director of Berkeley's Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory.

The formal agreement specifying how all of the partners will work together is expected to be in place by summer. The university will own the intellectual property for any research done on campus by Berkeley faculty, and will jointly own the rights to research done collaboratively with BP personnel.

"From the Laboratory to the Fuel Pump"
Ultimately, the goal is to translate the institute's research into real-world solutions. As Birgeneau explained, the partnership with BP provides the necessary resources to enable this. "We will want to end up taking this research from the laboratory to the fuel pump," he said. "In order to fulfill our social mission in this very important area we actually must partner with industry."

The core of a great academic university such as UC Berkeley is academic research, noted Steven Chu, director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. While this research creates knowledge, it doesn't necessarily take this research and translate it into reality. That's where BP's expertise will come into play. "This is not just academic research," Chu said. "We're trying to solve the problem."

In addition to the funding from BP, EBI will also benefit from additional state funding that will help build a new facility on campus to house the institute.

While the funding from BP covers a 10-year time period, the hope is that the institute will continue beyond that. Ongoing large-scale efforts will be necessary "to make a meaningful impact on these energy challenges," Birgeneau said. "This is a huge amount of money that BP is dedicating, but it is actually a start, not an end."