Steve Chu and Robert J. Birgeneau
2007-04-25 10:00:00.0
Current rank: Not ranked

SAN FRANCISCO -

Among America's most serious concerns today are national security, long-term economic competitiveness, and the dangers of global warming. At the center of all of these concerns is energy. The single most important problem that science and technology must solve in the coming decades is finding abundant, sustainable and environmentally and socially friendly alternatives to fossil fuels.

The clear evidence that the Earth is warming persuades us that unless we do a better job of conserving energy while also quickly developing new sources of clean energy, the results could be disastrous.

The predictions of global warming carry serious economic consequences, and these costs have not yet entered into the economics of our current energy usage. Our national security is also intimately tied to our energy security.

With the establishment of the Energy Biosciences Institute at the UC Berkeley, our state and the Bay Area, in particular, will be poised to blaze a trail toward a sustainable energy future that the rest of the world will follow.

The goal of EBI, and the reason why we are so excited to have it located at Berkeley, is to address the distressing realities of global warming by developing environmentally sustainable and economically viable transportation fuels as alternatives to high-carbon petroleum.

The institute's primary purpose is to generate scientific and technical breakthroughs that will make it possible to go beyond the limitations of today's corn-based ethanol to efficiently convert cellulose that is derived from non-food plants, such as perennial grasses, into carbon-neutral fuels.

Just as the development of the microprocessor drove the development of Silicon Valley and the discovery of recombinant DNA technology became a foundation of the biotechnology industry now flourishing in the Bay Area, we anticipate that the development of advanced biofuels at EBI will help to spur the next transformation of Bay Area industry and innovation.

In competing for the $500 million, 10-year research contract from the global energy company BP, the team of UC Berkeley, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign had a clear goal from the start.

Our team's winning proposal had the following premise: the EBI would not be just another research institute, but rather an extraordinary marshalling of human and infrastructure resources for the purpose of inventing and developing technologies that will address the energy, environmental and social needs of our global community.

As is broadly recognized, we face challenging scientific, economic and social problems in finding better, cleaner transportation fuels. The advanced biofuels we plan to develop must make the transition from the laboratory to the fuel pump as soon as possible and on a global scale. This is why we believe a partnership with a major energy company such as BP is of fundamental importance.

In this and all university-industry partnerships, universities must protect the academic integrity of faculty, research scientists and graduate students; any such agreement must also be consistent with our overarching mission to serve the public trust. The terms of the partnership must be based on fundamental principles that allow for open and timely dissemination of research results. Agreements must respect our primary commitment to the education of our students, and support our ability to make research results available for public benefit in a diligent and timely manner. Similarly, universities must also protect the academic freedom of their faculty who want to carry out such research, a point that was driven home by an important debate last week in a special meeting of the Berkeley Academic Senate. The contract with BP for the EBI, which is being drafted for approval this summer, will meet these requirements.

The innovation economy of the Bay Area is a testament to the beneficial partnerships that can occur between industry and universities. California's information technology and biotechnology industries would not exist without such alliances.

In 2005, 35 percent of the nation's venture capital was invested in the Bay Area; the development of an entirely new energy industry is not only likely, but fully expected.

The work done at the EBI and other energy research at Berkeley and LBNL, combined with initiatives underway in the University of California system, at Stanford University, and elsewhere, will create the next generation of scientists deeply knowledgeable in all areas of clean, sustainable energy development. This is why we believe that if the solution to sustainable, reliable and environmentally responsible energy is to be found and put to use in a meaningful way, it has the best chances of happening in California.

Steve Chu is the sixth director of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, a recipient of the 1997 Nobel Prize in physics, and professor of physics and of molecular and cell biology. Robert J. Birgeneau is the ninth chancellor of the UC Berkeley campus and a professor of physics.