http://sanfrancisco.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/stories/2007/01/29/daily34.html?jst=b_ln_hl
UC Berkeley wins race for $500 million biofuels center
San Francisco Business Times - 4:05 PM PST Wednesday
by Daniel S. Levine
Officials of oil giant BP are expected to announce it is awarding a $500
million biofuels research program to a consortium led by researchers at
the QB3 facility at the University of California, Berkeley.
The consortium includes the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley Lab
in Berkeley and the Joint Genome Institute in Walnut Creek as well as
the University of Illinois, which will provide agricultural expertise.
A news conference is scheduled for 10 a.m. (PST) Thursday at the UC
Berkeley campus for what the university described as a "major
announcement" about a "landmark initiative to conduct clean energy
research."
UC officials said they could not comment on the matter until the news
conference.
In June, BP said it will spend $500 million over the next 10 years to
establish the BP Energy Biosciences Institute, which it described as the
"first facility of its kind in the world." The facility will be a
dedicated biosciences energy research laboratory attached to a major
academic center in the United States or the United Kingdom.
The establishment of the institute solidifies the Bay Area as a leading
center for biofuel research. It would join Department of Energy labs,
biotechnology companies such as Genencor International and Amyris
Biotechnologies and leading research universities already working in the
area.
UC Berkeley was believed to be competing with several leading academic
institutions to host the proposed Energy Biosciences Institute. Other
institutions thought to have submitted competing proposals include the
University of California, San Diego, the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, Cambridge University and Imperial College, London.
BP has said it aims to launch early research programs by the end of 2007.
The institute is expected to focus on developing new biofuel components
and improving the efficiency and flexibility of those blended with
transport fuels. It will also develop new technologies to enhance and
accelerate the conversion of organic matter to biofuels with the aim of
increasing the proportion of a crop that can be used to produce
feedstock and use modern plant science to develop species that produce a
higher yield of energy molecules and can be grown on land not suitable
for food production.
Scientists from the host university and other academic institutions
would staff the institute, along with a handful of specialists from BP.
BP wants the facility to not only perform research, but to train a new
generation of interdisciplinary scientists to marry biotechnology with
energy production. It is also expected the institute will be a point for
collaboration with leading biotechnology companies focusing on applying
biotechnology to energy production.
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