Chevron pumps more money into university biofuel research

Texas A&M today became the latest university system to accept funding from a major oil company—prompting more concerns about big oil tainting or otherwise taking advantage of universities.

Chevron (NYSE: CVX) and the Texas A&M Agriculture and Engineering BioEnergy Alliance announced today that they have entered into a strategic research agreement to accelerate the production and conversion of crops for manufacturing ethanol and other biofuels from cellulose.

Chevron Technology Ventures is to support research initiatives over a four-year period through the Texas A&M BioEnergy Alliance, a formal partnership combining the collective strengths of The Texas A&M university system's two research agencies in agriculture and engineering: the Texas Agricultural Experiment Station (TAES) and the Texas Engineering Experiment Station (TEES).

Neither Chevron nor Texas A&M would disclose to the Cleantech Group the amount of the funding committed by Chevron, but the company has already invested dozens of millions of dollars in other U.S. universities.

The Texas A&M research initiatives are to focus on several technology advancements to produce biofuels, including:

• Identifying, assessing, cultivating, and optimizing production of second-generation energy feedstocks for cellulose and bio-oils with a focus on non-food crops
• Characterizing and optimizing the design of dedicated bioenergy crops through advances in genomic sciences and plant breeding
• Developing integrated logistics systems associated with the harvest, transport, storage and conversion of bioenergy crops, and
• Developing advanced biofuels processing technologies

Texas A&M is known for progressive biofuel research.

For instance, Texas A&M BioEnergy Alliance partners in agriculture have developed high-yield cellulosic energy crops that can produce significantly more biomass per acre than most alternatives.

"We have been able to capitalize on decades of existing research into sorghum, sugarcane, forage and oil-based cropping systems, which should provide us with premier, dedicated feedstocks for biofuels and renewable energy that are sustainable within existing agricultural production systems," said Dr. Elsa Murano, vice chancellor and dean of Texas A&M Agriculture and Life Sciences.

"Cellulosic ethanol, as opposed to sugar or starch-based ethanol, broadens the choice of feedstock without impacting food supplies," said Rick Zalesky, vice president of Biofuels and Hydrogen, Chevron Technology Ventures.

"Making it commercially viable poses a number of scientific and technical challenges—challenges which we believe the faculty, staff and students at one of the world's premier universities in agricultural sciences and engineering are well-equipped to overcome."

Not everyone thinks it's a good idea that big oil should get unfettered access to universities' research departments.

"I don't want to come across saying oil companies shouldn't be making investments in alternative energy. I just feel really strongly that they shouldn't be outsourcing their research departments to universities and controlling the results," said John M. Simpson of the Foundation for Taxpayer & Consumer Rights to the Cleantech Group.

Simpson and his organization have warned of what he described as the "very real possibility that the results of the university will be controlled by the oil companies, and any of the technologies that emerge."

"Today's announcement is remarkably short on details, including the amount of money, or whether there would be proprietary research done at the university or not," Simpson said.

The foundation wants universities taking oil company money to ensure the research agenda is set by the university, that any patents are done on a non-exclusive basis and that any potential marketing campaign by the oil company is approved by the university.

ExxonMobil, which has given Stanford $100M, has run advertisements touting its investment, and cited it as a reason to recommend voting against certain environmentally friendly shareholder proposals coming up at its next annual meeting, according to Simpson (see the Cleantech Group's Big oil undermining biofuel research, warns watchdog.)

"On the basis of what's sort of pocket change to the oil company, they're able to tout their environmentally friendly research and take advantage of the the university's brand name and image," he warned.

Chevron formed a biofuels business unit in May 2006. It has formed research arrangements with the Georgia Institute of Technology, for which it paid the university $12M, the University of California at Davis, a $25M investment, and the Colorado Center for Biorefining and Biofuels—a consortium of NREL, three Colorado universities and other private companies.

Chevron also maintains a substantial internal biofuel R&D research operation, in addition to R&D activities with Weyerhaeuser Company, one of the world's largest integrated forest products companies.

In a related Chevron development today, the company unveiled a biodiesel plant in Galveston, Texas. At 20 million gallons per year, with a capability to grow to 110 million, the plant is one of the first large scale soybean-based biodiesel production facilities in North America. Chevron owns 22 percent of the plant.

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