Associated Press
02-02-07
Illinois expects to get $100 million from energy-research agreement
CHAMPAIGN - Scientists from the University of California and the University of
Illinois will team up on a project to develop new, clean energy sources, backed
by $500 million from oil company BP PLC.
Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger
announced the creation of the Energy Biosciences Institute in Berkeley, Calif., on
Thursday. There was a simultaneous announcement in Champaign with first lady
Patricia Blagojevich.
"We are extremely pleased that Illinois and our flagship public-research university
(are) a part of BP's exciting new Energy Biosciences Institute, which will advance
important new discoveries to protect our environment and expand our economy,"
Rod Blagojevich said.
"This is great news for California and this is great news for America,"
Schwarzenegger said.
The teams from UC Berkeley and UI Urbana-Champaign, a leader in crop
biology, also will work with researchers from Lawrence Berkeley National
Laboratory.
The new institute will be the first public-private research lab dedicated to
renewable fuels and clean energy, said Robert Malone, chairman and president
of BP America. He called the partnership a groundbreaking effort that "we believe
will have an immense positive impact on our world."
UC Berkeley wants to combine its expertise in engineering and life sciences to
find ways to develop new fuel sources and to make solar energy more powerful
and less expensive.
The University of Illinois initially will focus on growing plants such as switchgrass
that can be used to produce alternative fuels, Chancellor Richard Herman said.
The school, expected to see up to $100 million of the research money, has
committed 12,000 square feet of space and expects the work to occupy dozens
of faculty, staff and students over the next decade, he said. In addition, 340 acres
of farmland at the university will be devoted to the new institute.
BP and university officials say an agreement they've worked on during the past
months should help minimize one of the stickiest questions about having private-
and public-sector scientists work together: What work will be in the public domain
and what will be proprietary?
BP scientists will work on both campuses, and their work will belong to BP, said
Jim Breson, BP's project general manager for the institute. But much of the work
done by faculty, staff and students at either university will be in the public
domain, meaning anyone can take advantage of it.
"There will be a public phase of this and there will be things that we work on for
BP. It's the crosswalk that's going to be hard," Illinois' Herman added.
"Our faculty in particular understand that they're not giving up their rights."
Herman anticipates the new energy research partnership will be a strong
recruiting tool for both faculty and top students.
"There's a history of doing big science," Herman said, noting the University of
Illlinois' involvement in the creation of supercomputing and cyber infrastructure.
In addition, Illinois faculty and alumnae have won 22 Nobel prizes.
Cal had its own impressive history to sell, he added. And the state of California
sweetened the pot for BP with $40 million in state bonds, and personal lobbying
by Schwarzenegger, the Contra Costa Times reported.
The two schools often compete against each other for research money, faculty
and students, Herman said, but decided about three months ago to work
together.
Once they did, researchers at the two schools quickly put together a
presentation, then Herman and others flew to London to pitch it to BP, he said.
The Illinois-California bid was chosen over competing proposals from MIT,
Purdue University, Iowa State University, Cambridge University in England and
others.
The University of Illinois has begun talking to companies that will be part of or
benefit from the research conducted in the state, Herman added, declining to
name them.
Decatur-based Archer Daniels Midland is the country's leading producer of
ethanol, a fuel additive usually made of corn but that also can be derived from
other crops.
"I would hope that companies like ADM will partner with us," Herman said.
Other interested companies could include equipment manufacturers that will
need to create new machinery for harvesting and hauling tons of plant material
needed to feed ethanol plants, said Robert Easter, dean of the school's College
of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences.
"I don't think we fully yet appreciate the machinery challenge," he said. "How do
you harvest this massive amount of material?"
Illinois is home to agricultural equipment makers Caterpillar Inc., based in Peoria,
and Moline-based Deere & Co..