Warwick and BP allegedly concealing renewable energy research
A recent investigation has revealed that the BP Archives at the University of Warwick are only open up to 1976, potentially withholding files containing research into renewable energies.
Though BP chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg stated: “Nothing is locked away. We share everything happily”, a company spokesperson confirmed at BP’s Annual General Meeting (AGM) on Thursday 16 April, that no material collated over the last 40 years had been made available to the public.
The information has since been confirmed by the BP Press Office.
A group of students, representing Fossil-Free Warwick, came together on Tuesday 21 April with the intention of finding out whether the files were unavailable and why. They feared that the records could reveal a vast amount of invaluable research concerning solar power and other renewable technologies.
The students are concerned that, because the university receives money from BP, Warwick could be complicit in actively participating with the withholding of the files.
Warwick “implicated”
Oliver Rice, a fourth-year Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE) student and the Students’ Union’s elected Democracy and Development officer, said: “This revelation is particularly concerning. Not only does it appear that Warwick is implicated in what could be deliberate attempts by a leading oil company to hide incredibly important research in to sustainable energy.
“But it also suggests that Warwick may be receiving funding from a source that would have a direct interest in Warwick maintaining its investments in fossil fuels in the face of compelling pressure to divest.
“In short, the University of Warwick has a lot of questions to answer.”
The students have since discovered that the BP archive was initially open to 1954. In 2005, following an agreement with internal stakeholders, this period was extended to 1967. The decision was made according to the then national archive period of 30 years.
The opening period is allegedly reviewed on a regular basis with these internal stakeholders.
Archivist Peter Housego, stated: “In respect of the statement made by the chairman at the AGM, this stated that the majority of the company expenditure on R&D has been made in development of the company’s traditional oil-and-gas business; a small part of it was to do with alternative energies.
“However, those areas that we did not see as commercial or promising were closed down.”
Mr Housego added that there are areas of research that the company believe could be promising, such as carbon and storage, however, “where we have knowledge but it is not commercial for now, it is of course our property and we do not share it, because that is our commercial interests.”
The archivist explained that in line with standard archival selection principles, the archive holds a small fraction of the total records generated over its history by the company. The files are selected to reflect the diversity of the company’s operations and the range of countries with which it has had an association.
BP invested in Warwick library
In 1992 BP and the University of Warwick made an agreement whereby BP invested money in the construction of the library extension building. In return for this investment the University granted BP a lease for part of the building to house its own archive collection.
Nevertheless, while the formal BP archive is based at the University of Warwick, it is not based at the MRC. The MRC and BP operate from different funding and contain different staff.
The MRC is the main place of deposit in the UK for archives from multiple organisations and subjects, such as trade unions and employers’ organisations.
Alex Clark, a fourth-year PPE undergraduate, said that conflicting information has been presented to the public, “BP’s Chairman, Carl-Henric Svanberg was asked about this by shareholders at the annual general meeting on 16 April. He insisted BP is happy to share everything. This is clearly not the case.”
He added: “Warwick University is currently considering proposals to divest its endowment fund from fossil fuel companies.
“Given that it is actively complicit in keeping potentially valuable research on renewables under wraps, as well as hosting the archives of one of the world’s largest fossil fuel companies, a conflict of interests is in evidence. This must be addressed by the University.”
According to the Guardian, researchers have established that BP invested billions of pounds into low-carbon technology and green energy over a number of decades, but gradually retired the programme to focus more on its fossil fuel business.
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