As oil spills into the Gulf of Mexico, we are reminded of UC Berkeley's controversial deal with BP. The oil company currently supports the Energy Biosciences Institute at UC Berkeley, and as one recent newspaper article put it, "It may seem incongruous that an oil company responsible for such environmental devastation is funding this effort to find green fuels and reduce oil use." Like so many other large corporations, BP spends a small fraction of its revenue on alternative technologies and resources so that it can proudly proclaim that it is doing something for the environment.
Since universities are now seeking outside funding, and corporations are looking for ways to improve their public images, programs like Berkeley's Energy Biosciences Institute seem to make perfect sense. However, we must ask if universities really want to have their images tarred by companies that are more concerned with the bottom line than higher education.
When in 2007, BP pledged $500 million to Berkeley, the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, some people protested, but most university officials praised this deal as the biggest corporate support for university research ever made. However, we have to ask if this is a deal made with the devil, and will the university's reputation for objectivity and neutrality be undermined by such a huge gift? In other words, can scientists question BP and its practices if these researchers are being supported out of the corporation's profits?
According to its agreement with BP, the UC could walk out of the arrangement if an event occurs that violates the university's policies. In the agreement signed by UC and BP, it clearly states that the university "should avoid any collaboration that would render it an active participant in criminal conduct, human rights violations, or environmental despoliation." Since the current oil spill is clearly an example of "environmental despoliation" and may prove to be a case of "criminal conduct," it is clear that the UC should break the deal. However, we know how hard it will be to walk away from easy money during a budget crisis.
http://cloudminder.blogspot.com/2010/05/university-of-bp.html
most importantly she stated
"The core mission of Berkeley is education, open knowledge exchange and objective research, not making money or furthering the interests of a private firm. In the last two decades, however, Cal and other universities — increasingly desperate for research dollars — have signed agreements that fail to protect their essential independence, allowing corporations excessive control over their research.
The BP deal magnifies this trend. Most corporations sponsor university research one study and one lab at a time. With the Energy Biosciences Institute, BP would exert influence over an entire academic research center (spanning 25 labs at its three public partners), bankrolling and setting the agenda for projects that cut across many departments.
What's more, BP would set up shop on campus: 50 scientists employed by the company would work on joint projects with academic scientists at Berkeley and the University of Illinois. BP also would set up private labs on these campuses, where all the research would be proprietary and confidential."
I only attended college for 2 terms, decided I really didn't care for the management, clientele, and so forth, and I hit the road. Along the way, somewhere, I did gain an interest in alternative energy, though, and my question to all these learned individuals is, 'how much government money or corporate grant money do you NEED to kind of look behind you, take a look at the ocean, and figure out the mechanics of wave-powered ocean water distillation and electrolysis, which, unless I'm a complete idiot(a possibility I haven't ruled out, as yet), would seem to me to be the next best thing to perpetual motion, and possibly even the death knell of the oil industry as we've come to know and love it? 24 hours in a day, all of them wasted if people are misappropriating the funds...build the better mousetrap, slap a patent on it, build about 10,000 units around the country, and start paving a path for hydrogen power nationwide. Or, go flip burgers at McDonald's, if you don't really feel like pushing the theoretical envelope or whatever.