09/18/2008 07h53
Shell announces partnership with São Paulo Unicamp
Gazeta Mercantil - 09/18/2008
Shell announced yesterday, during the Rio Oil & Gas, six new agreements with research institutes in several countries in order to progress in the studies on new generation biofuels. Among the institutions chosen by the British-Dutch oil company there is the Brazilian Unicamp, said Graem Sweeney, Executive Vice-President of the company and person in charge of the innovation area. Besides Unicamp, the university located in Campinas, interior of São Paulo, agreements were made with North American MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), two Chinese research institutions and two other institutions in the United Kingdom, one of them being the University of Manchester. Last year, Shell decided to quadruplicate the investments in the area of biofuels. Until the first half of the decade, Shell invested nearly US$ 1 billion in renewable energy, but with the main focus on wind and solar sources. "We need innovation to reduce costs and gain scale", affirmed the Executive Vice-President of the company. In a period from five to ten years, Shell expects to get results with the so-called of second generation biofuels that will not use food as main raw materials, in contrast to most of current renewable fuels. The focus is to generate clean fuel from what is left from vegetables.
