Opposition to Campus Biofuels Deal With Energy Giant Holds Teach-In

Students, faculty and journalists denounced a $500 million award to fund alternative energy research on campus at a teach-in Monday, citing concerns over the deal’s possible ethical and environmental implications.

More than three weeks after campus officials accepted a 10-year, half billion-dollar award from global energy corporation BP Amoco PLC, the student-centered coalition Stop BP-Berkeley demanded that Chancellor Robert J. Birgeneau not sign the pending contract.

“What I see going on here is prostitution,” said Ignacio Chapela, an assistant environmental science, policy and management professor, to more than 100 audience members.

According to the grant proposal, the money will go towards establishing the Energy Biosciences Institute on campus. Scientists from BP and UC Berkeley—along with partner University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign—will research carbon-neutral energy, including biofuel production and fossil fuel utilization.

But some students and faculty said the deal, potentially the biggest in campus history, has lacked student, faculty and community input thus far.

Many also said they are concerned with how corporate funding may influence academic freedom, as well as the environmental impacts of biofuel development.

Stop BP-Berkeley is currently circulating a petition to halt the deal and will hold a protest at California Hall Thursday, said student facilitator Hillary Lehr.

As a conservation and resource studies and anthropology major, Lehr said she wrote her thesis about the effects of corporate funding of academic research.

“They touted it as a ‘green’ deal, which is not true,” she said. “They’re making money by looking green.”

Miguel Altieri, an environmental science, policy and management professor, said that growing the raw materials necessary for developing biofuels would require hundreds of thousands of land acres, possibly leading to worldwide deforestation in the future.

Meanwhile, geoengineering professor Tadeusz Patzek said he was opposed to the Energy Biosciences Institute itself, a building which would span at least 50,000 square feet, according to the proposal. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has pledged $40 million toward its construction.

“There are certain things that can be done in less flashy buildings,” Patzek said. “Like educating students.”

Chapela pointed to a 1998 multi-million dollar research contract between UC Berkeley and life-science company Novartis, as another instance in which critics said the structure of the arrangement could inappropriately affect research.

Chapela said that while he understood the lack of funding available for research, “that need has to be tempered by … social responsibility.”

“Before crossing the line, I want to ask questions,” he said. “And my answer at this point is no.”

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