Oil Companies Push for Alternative Energy Research

KPBS | By KPBS Public Broadcasting

Published May 23, 2007 at 9:53 AM PDT

This story was published more than 17 years ago.

Oil companies are spending millions to fund alternative energy research at universities across the country, including here in California. Are oil companies setting the agenda for higher education? We

Alison St John (Guest Host): Public universities are always in need of money to fund research and when government grants aren’t enough, they go to the private sector. But when a university like U.C. Berkeley accepts a grant for $5 million from British Petroleum to develop a new energy bioscience institute, you can’t help wondering who will be calling the shots. Will it be Berkeley or British Petroleum?

Especially when you hear that much of the initial research will be into developing bio-fuels from plants and improving the extraction of petroleum from existing reserves.

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Guest:

John Simpson , a consumer advocate and director of the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights, a nonprofit, nonpartisan consumer advocacy group in Santa