Also: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/03/07/BUGCHOGF0D1.DTL San Francisco Chronicle, March 7 2007 The promise and perils of tech transfer Universities mull industry partnerships
http://www.berkeleydaily.org/text/article.cfm?issue=02-06-07&storyID=26282 Berkeley Daily Planet, 6 Feb 2007 News Analysis: UC's Biotech Benefactors: The Power of Big Finance and Bad Ideas By Miguel A. Altieri and Eric Holt-Gimenez http://www.dailycal.org/sharticle.php?id=23290 The Daily Californian Two Arrests in Protest Over Biofuels Deal Students Don Lab Coats, Spill Mock Oil in Rally Against BP Contract Friday, March 2, 2007 http://www.berkeleydaily.org/text/article.cfm?issue=03-06-07&storyID=26481 Berkeley Daily Planet News Analysis: GMO Research Dominates BP-UC Partnership http://www.berkeleydailyplanet.com/article.cfm?issue=03-02-07&storyID=26451 Berkeley Daily Planet Week of Arrests, Protests Challenges UC/BP Accord (03-02-07) http://www.counterpunch.org/scherr02082007.html Judith Scherr: BP Beds Down with Berkeley Oil Company's University Liaison Raises Questions February 8, 2007 http://www.mindfully.org/GE/The-Kept-UniversityMar00.htm The Kept University Atlantic Monthly v.285, n.3 Mar00 ------- http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/03/08/MNGCROHIOV1.DTL San Francisco Chronicle (page A - 1), March 8, 2007 Cal's biofuel deal challenged on campus Critics say energy alliance with oil giant BP endangers school's integrity, independence Rick DelVecchio, Chronicle Staff Writer Andrew Paul Gutierrez, a 67-year-old professor of ecosystems science in UC Berkeley's College of Natural Resources, has a word for those who believe human ingenuity and productivity are boundless. He calls them "cornucopians." He thinks cornucopians are misguided and prone to taking big risks that can backfire. That's one of the reasons he is upset that the university where he has spent his entire academic life is joining with oil giant BP in a $500 million, 10-year program to discover how to mass-produce clean, safe transportation fuels -- such as ethanol -- from biomass in an environmentally safe and cost-effective way. The Energy Biosciences Institute is to create high-tech energy farms as productive as oil fields but without the carbon waste that adds to climate change. The harvests would be processed into sugar-based fuels for filling the gas tanks of vehicles. Institute scientists "will be unified and propelled by a common purpose to solve a global problem of great magnitude and urgency," according to the proposal written by a UC Berkeley-led team and accepted by BP. The BP deal has been presented as an environmental call to arms, but Gutierrez is among a loose-knit group of faculty members and students not falling in line. The critics don't agree on what they disagree about but share a fervor that contrasts with the administration's self-confidence at landing history's richest academic-industry research partnership. The heretics fall into three camps: those who question the science program, those who feel the deal taints the university's independence, and those who fear it conflicts with UC Berkeley's time-honored collegial process for hiring and promoting faculty. They're few in number on a faculty of more than 1,500 but have been so persistent since the deal's announcement five weeks ago, that time had to be set aside for everyone to speak. That time is from 4 to 6 p.m. today at a campus forum sponsored by Cal's Academic Senate. "These are arguments that have to be taken seriously," said Bill Drummond, a journalism professor who is chairman of the Academic Senate. To give the sponsors of the BP deal their due, supporters say, leaders of the giant petroleum company are considering the issue of global warming in broad ecological and socioeconomic terms. No previous effort has even attempted such a comprehensive approach. "I've met a bunch of the VPs at BP," said Chris Somerville, a Stanford professor who is the top candidate for the Energy Biosciences Institute's top job. "They're people like you and me. They're trying to do the right thing. They want the right thing for their children and grandchildren." Gutierrez, interviewed at his office in Mulford Hall, said he believes it's important to pursue alternative fuels but was hard put to find anything to cheer him up about the BP deal's approach. "You'd think this proposal is exactly what we needed because it's promising a lot to reduce greenhouse gases," he said. "The problem is, how do you separate the hype from the facts?" Another reason he's upset is he thinks the deal marks a step backward for the university's intellectual independence. He criticized the administration for entering into a relationship in which 50 corporate researchers will work hand in hand with university scientists. Gutierrez said partnerships between individual faculty members and corporate sponsors have been common during his career, but a partnership on the institutional level is something new. "There used to be deals between individual professors and industry -- they would provide funding, and they could provide any kind of relationship you wanted," he said. "But you didn't have people coming in from industry with all the rights of a professor who's been through the academic sieve." What is being introduced in the BP deal, Gutierrez said, is a public-private hybrid he calls a "corporaversity." BP's corporate scientists and engineers will be able to profit from what they learn on campus, which is not only normal but also desirable if the research is to have a rapid social impact, according to the sponsors. But they also will be encouraged to embrace campus intellectual life, including, as the BP sponsors suggest, helping design courses, mentor students and promote science careers to schoolkids. "It's a harbinger," Gutierrez said. "As this big money starts coming in, first we'll become addicted to it, and secondly, in becoming addicted to it, they'll start demanding more things from the university in terms of what the relationship is all about." Gutierrez, a New Mexico cowboy's son who worked nights at a gas station to help pay his way through college and grad school, comes to his critique as an expert in modeling natural systems. His recent work includes plotting the impact of climate change on the spread of the olive fly, and the ecological backlash from cotton genetically modified to kill bugs. During his interview with The Chronicle, he returned again and again to the theme that natural systems are all about limits. Modern human systems, on the other hand, are all about consumption. So there's a battle. Gutierrez does not bet on technology to win the battle. He says biological systems will strain to reach equilibrium and frustrate the cleverest of the cornucopians trying to adjust them to benefit humans' insatiable consumption. "What do you know about all the pest problems that are going to be created when you start producing these plants that are going to be different?" he asked. "Pretty soon you start making a system that starts out with good intentions but becomes more complicated. "That's what happened with bioengineered crops. In some areas it simplifies the system. But in others it makes it so complicated." The biofuels push has been compared with putting a man on the moon. Gutierrez doesn't see the connection. "As a scientific adventure and quest of man and all that good stuff, it's wonderful," he said, "and I recall exactly where I was when they stepped off onto the moon. This is different. We're messing with the whole environment." The vision of rolling Midwestern fields of bioengineered fuel crops is, Gutierrez thinks, "nonsense." He thinks of south-central Brazil, with its sugar-cane plantations in place of what had been a mix of forests and diverse croplands. The cane is harvested to make ethanol, a substitute for fossil fuels in transportation. "It's sugar cane as far as the eye can see," he said. "The rivers run red with the runoff." He fears more such scenes around the world. "At a certain point there's a carrying capacity to the environment," he said. "Even if you plant the last hectare with biofuels, the demand keeps growing. Then what?" E-mail Rick DelVecchio at [EMAIL PROTECTED] _______________________________________________ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainablelists.org Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (50,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
