BP to Invest $1.5 Billion in Alternative Energy

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)-- BP PLC (NYSE:BP) (London) recently announced that its investments in alternative energy this year will reach $1.5 billion, accounting for 7% of all of the company's investments. BP formed BP Alternative Energy in 2005 to carry out business in zero- to low-carbon energy (wind power, solar power, hydrogen power), carbon capture and storage, natural gas power generation and transportation bio-fuel. Based in the UK, BP Alternative Energy has branch companies in North America, Europe, Asia, Australia and South America that operate power generation stations. BP Alternative Energy plans to invest $8 billion in solar power, wind power, hydrogen power and combined-cycle power generation in the next 10 years.

In February 2007, BP announced that it would invest $500 million in the next 10 years to establish the BP Energy Biosciences Institute to conduct research on the production of new and clean energy. Its initial research will focus on biofuels for transportation purposes. BP chose the University of California, Berkeley; the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC); and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory to be its partners and set up a joint research body with them. Within the joint research body, UIUC is spearheading the exploration of new biofuel crops. The institute also engages in researching the conversion of heavy hydrocarbon into clean fuel, the improvement of existing oil-gas reservoir recovery rate and carbon dioxide storage technology.

BP also established a new department dedicated biofuels. This department will work with BP's existing refining and marketing departments. BP also entered into a partnership with Dupont to produce and market the new generation bio-fuel butanol as a renewable transportation fuel.

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