Comments on: Australian Universities Supporting Fossil Fuel & Nukes Industry

By: arif ali

arif ali — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 07:06:25 +0000

i want to get admission in any fuel searching university

By: R Margolis

R Margolis — Sat, 11 Aug 2007 20:16:34 +0000

At least for my alma mater, UC Santa Barbara, they do research on solar cells, low energy LEDs, and new reactor structural materials. UC Berkeley does similar in their various engineering and science departments. If there is a wide variety of research going on, the nearest thing to the ‘public good’ should work out. Also, students will have the choices open to them of what to study.

By: Anna Rose

Anna Rose — Sat, 11 Aug 2007 16:27:37 +0000

For me the issue is who gets to set the research agendas in our Universities? It’s not students or the ‘public good’..

By: R Margolis

R Margolis — Sat, 11 Aug 2007 15:26:57 +0000

I realize the post is talking about industry-university relationships, the specific area of automated mining sounds good to me. Even without the mining for fuels such as coal or uranium, there will always be some mining for raw materials. The recent Utah accident with the six trapped miners is a reminder that automated mining is a safer way to get materials out of the ground.

By: jessejenkins

jessejenkins — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 17:19:31 +0000

And all kinds of well-entrenched energy interests fund energy-related research at MIT…

Plenty of dirty money in our Universities, both in the U.S. and Australia (and probably everywhere else too).

By: lizveazey

lizveazey — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 04:32:21 +0000

Hi Anna, great post. This is an issue that really bothers me as well. I know that this cycle of money and influence goes well beyond energy, but I’m really upset by American Universities that accept money from dirty energy companies. This acceptance validates the companies, allows them to greenwash, and silences (or even buys as advocates) professors who might otherwise speak out against these companies, their practices and their plans to build new dirty energy plants.
a few examples:
ExxonMobil funds energy work at Stanford
Duke Energy funds environmental school at Duke University
Progress Energy funds environmental graduate schools at University of North Carolina (my alma mater)
ConocoPhillips funds biofuel research at Iowa State University
and list goes on and on and on . . .
one of the only graduate energy programs that I’ve found not funded by dirty energy is the Energy and Resources Group program at UC-Berkeley, which also happens to be one of the top energy programs in the country.