Bank Funds Carbon Capture Research

Bank of America announced yesterday that it will donate $1.2 million to the Harvard University Center for the Environment over the next three years in order to fund research into carbon capture and storage.

The bank is partnering with the Center for the Environment as part of its ten-year, $20-billion plan to support environmentally-oriented innovation by investing in renewable energy and financing sustainable construction.

The grant will allow the center to step up its research efforts into carbon capture as part of Harvard’s Climate Solutions Program.

Carbon capture and storage is the practice of depositing compressed carbon dioxide within geologic formations in order to prevent its release into the atmosphere.

“We’re looking to bring together an interdisciplinary team of faculty from across the University to look at the very real difficulties associated with implementing carbon capture and storage systems and technologies,” said Jim I. Clem, the center’s managing director. “This is a challenge that requires a broad spectrum of perspectives.”

The assembled team will include representatives from the Harvard Kennedy School, as well as the Business School and Law School, Clem said.

The researchers will focus on the scientific, economic, legal, and technical hurdles that accompany carbon capture technology.

“Our hope is to draw on Harvard’s strength in this area, which is not only depth but breadth of expertise,” Clem said.

Bank of America has been working with the Center for Environment since 2006, when it began supporting the “Future of Energy” lecture series. Since then, the bank has extended its funding in order to support two other lecture series: “Green Conversations” and “Biodiversity, Ecology and Global Change.”

Daniel P. Schrag, the Center for the Environment’s director, said that Bank of America’s funding has been central to the expansion of the center’s activities.

“Only about a quarter of our budget comes directly from the provost,” he said. “The lectures that Bank of America has sponsored have allowed Harvard to host speakers from all over the world.”

In addition to the importance of a global perspective, Schrag also emphasized the need for both “economists, engineers, and scientists” and “experts in cultures and civilization” to bring diverse expertise to the problem.

“To me,” he said, “Bank of America’s sponsorship is just a small piece of what I hope will be a broadening portfolio of energy and environment-related activities over the next decade.”