8-22-08 by dugan
I was reading up today on research about turning pond scum into
biodiesel. One promising thread is that algae can be fed the carbon
dioxide emitted by power plants, multiplying their oil production on a
waste greenhouse gas. Algae may also thrive on ground garbage. It’s a
concept that needs intensive, expensive research to prove if algae are
an energy savior, a false promise, or something in between. Then I came
across a paragraph in a Science Daily article from a few days ago that stopped me cold:
"Some of these pragmatic issues may have been
tackled already by the various private companies, including oil
industry giants Chevron and Shell, which are already researching algae
fuel, but a published scientific report on these fundamentals will be a
major benefit to other researchers looking into algae biofuel."
If Big Oil is doing this research and keeping even interim results to
itself, we can’t trust oil companies with anything surrounding our
desperate need for a better energy future. It’s the same reason that universities shouldn’t be taking big bucks from oil companies in return for letting the companies shroud research results in delay, secrecy and proprietary rights.
Chevron is funding a startup company called Solazyme,
and so can hide behind a veil of another company’s proprietary rights.
But if Chevron is funding the research, it will control the result and
can just as easily bury it, calling the effort a disappointing failure.
Or Chevron can pull the funding at any point, as it did with a much-touted Texas biodiesel plant last year.
Shell, in partnership with Hawaii’s government, is funding a different, seawater-based algae project.
It has also formed a separate company to do the work. It has at least one other algae project as well. But again, whoever
pays the money controls the results. It’s been nearly a year now on the Hawaii project,
Shell. So how’s it going?
Shell and Chevron, show us your algae, and do it now. If taxpayers have
to duplicate oil companies’ secret "green" research, governments have
every right to strip the companies of public subsidy. and skim a chunk
of their profits for green R&D.