Researching low carbon technologies
University of California at Berkeley and partners
Exploring and applying the emerging secrets of biosienceBiotechnology is a booming science. It has been responsible for major advances in pharmaceuticals, medicine, genetics and food sources. But until now, bioscience has not been widely applied to energy.
BP is investing $500 million over 10 years establishing the Energy Biosciences Institute (EBI) hosted by the University of California at Berkeley with its associated strategic partners University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
The EBI is the first public-private institution of this scale in the world. Its goal is to perform ground-breaking research aimed at the production of new and cleaner energy, initially focusing on renewable biofuels for road transport. Some of the specific technical challenges the EBI will tackle are:
- How do we develop dedicated energy crops that can produce more biomass (plant material from which biofuel is produced) per acre than plants that are traditionally used for this purpose?
- How do we boost the concentration of fuel produced by the biofuel fermentation process?
Princeton University
Solving the carbon and climate problemCurrent projections suggest that energy use will double by 2050. However, the imperative of climate change requires total carbon emissions in 2050 to be the same as today, and then continue to decrease to half that level over the subsequent few decades.
At the Carbon Mitigation Initiative (CMI), a research partnership with BP, Ford Motor Company and Princeton University in the US, researchers are building a comprehensive view of the scientific, environmental and technological challenges that will determine how carbon is managed in the future.
Using this view as a backdrop, they are also plotting an alternative course for the future that will meet society’s energy demands while limiting carbon emissions; and developing safe, effective and affordable strategies to reduce carbon emissions.
CMI is responsible for the widely-quoted ‘wedges’ principle, used around the world to conceptualize the carbon mitigation problem. The wedges quantify the scale on which different means of avoiding carbon emissions – ranging from more efficient cars to solar power – would each need to widen in impact over the coming decades if it was to reach one billion tonnes of avoided emissions by 2050.
California Institute of Technology
Exploring game-changing nano solar technologyTechnologies can evolve gradually or make revolutionary leaps forward. BP Solar is pursuing both routes. To take some of the revolutionary leaps we are working with the California Institute of Technology, US.
The researchers are investigating the use of nano-technology to create designer solar cell materials that are cheaper to manufacture and install, and new methods of producing solar cells that are scaleable to very large areas. By exploring potential advances at the molecular level it also offers greater flexibility in installation methods, bringing the day closer when solar energy comes from a building material such as a coat of paint or brick.
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