UC Berkeley establishes Energy Biosciences Institute for Biofuel research

Energy Biosciences Institute is a partnership led by UC Berkeley to find clean, sustainable sources of energy and reduce the emission of greenhouse gases that cause global warming.

Oil giant BP will give $500 million and California has pledged $40 million to the center.

UC Berkeley will team up with the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory to develop fuel from plants, improve the extraction of oil from existing reserves and find ways to keep carbon from entering the atmosphere.
This is the first research laboratory dedicated to the development of alternative fuels. California claims to be the world center for biofuels research. A building to house the institute will be built on UC land at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Officials of both universities said they expect the institute to begin operating by June. The institute will be part of a broader effort by the UC to develop alternative fuels from hydrogen, helium, wind and solar energy.

BP has agreed to provide $50 million a year for 10 years to the institute, an unusual partnership between the universities, the oil company and state and federal governments. As many as 50 BP employees will work at the two campuses. Much of what the institute develops will be made available to the public, but BP will retain exclusive control over certain discoveries.

Steven Chu, who shared the Nobel Prize in physics in 1997 and is director of the Lawrence Berkeley lab, said the institute would take a team approach with scientists from different disciplines collaborating in as many as 25 groups. The institute will create the new discipline of "energy biosciences" and will offer instruction to undergraduate and graduate students in the hope of nurturing a new generation of experts in alternative fuels.

"This is our generation's moon shot," said UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau.