BP pledges $500m for Energy Biosciences Institute and new biofuels business
Thu 15 June 2006
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BP has announced that it is to fund radical research to enhance knowledge of bioscience and apply it to the production of new and cleaner energy, principally fuels for road transport. BP has also announced the creation of a partnership with Du Pont to develop, market and produce the next generation of biofuels.
BP's Chief Executive, Lord Browne, said the new Energy Biosciences Institute (EBI) would focus initially on three key areas of energy bioscience:
–Developing new biofuel components and improving the efficiency and flexibility of those currently blended with transport fuels
– Devising new technologies to enhance and accelerate the conversion of organic matter to biofuel molecules, with the aim of increasing the proportion of a crop which can be used to produce feedstock
– Using 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.
The company hopes to launch the institute's first research programmes by the end of 2007 and is in talks with universities in the United States and the UK which could host the new institute.
Lord Browne said at a press conference: "We believe that the demand for biofuels will rise significantly through the next decade. Consumers want energy which is clean and local."
“By creating this integrated and dedicated research centre, we plan to harness a technical discipline with enormous potential to provide new energy solutions.”
The EBI will undertake basic research freely accessible to the world’s technical communities as well as proprietary applied projects for commercial bioscience applications.
In the proprietary area, it will support the new biofuels business within BP’s refining and marketing division which has been created to address the increasing requirement that biocomponents be blended into traditional fossil-based transport fuels.
BP and DuPont have been working together since 2003 to develop advanced biofuels with properties that they say can help overcome the limitations of existing biofuels. According to a BP press release, that work has now progressed to the point where they are able to bring the first jointly developed product to market.
The companies’ joint strategy is to deliver advanced biofuels that will provide improved options for expanding energy supplies and accelerate the move to renewable transportation fuels.
BP says that the first product to market will be biobutanol, which will be introduced in the United Kingdom as a gasoline bio-component. BP and DuPont are working with British Sugar to convert the country’s first ethanol fermentation facility to produce biobutanol. The companies are aiming for initial introduction in the UK in 2007.
BP adds that additional global capacity will be introduced as market conditions dictate and a feasibility study in conjunction with British Sugar is already underway to examine the possibility of constructing larger facilities in the UK.
Related Links
Reuters - news link
BP press release on Oilvoice.com
BP press release - via Reuters
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