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BP to Fund Research Grant Component of PacX Project
Featured Article
March 16, 2012

BP to Fund Research Grant Component of PacX Project

By Jack Grauer
TMCnet Contributing Writer

Liquid Robotics sent four unmanned, data-collecting robots called Wave Gliders on a one-year research expedition through the Pacific Ocean in 2011. The program is called PacX. BP will fund a research grant for those with the best ideas on how to apply the information collected by the Gliders.


The self-powered machines traverse and retrieve previously inaccessible data about the body of water regarding wave patterns and a variety of other data. The results will be accessible to the public here.

Launched from San Francisco, the Wave Gliders clocked 3,200 nautical miles in the first leg of their trip alone when they passed Hawaii. They have already destroyed the Guinness record for most unmanned nautical miles traveled in a single voyage: 2,500. Two of the robots are headed for Japan; the other two are headed for Australia. In a Nov. 2011 release, Liquid Robotics CEO Bill Vass estimated that the Wave Gliders are set to travel a total of 33,000 nautical miles during the course of the project.

To the chagrin of every humanities graduate student in the world, BP will offer a series of cash research grants (First prize is $50,000.) to those who submit the best proposals on what to do with the data. Grant winners will receive direct access to one of the robots themselves, and the opportunity to present their research at a marine science and oceanographic research conference at a date yet to be announced. Interested parties must submit one-page abstracts by Jul. 17 2012.

An optimist would look at BP’s involvement with such an ecologically minded operation as a rather sweet-hearted gesture, considering Apr. 20 2010’s Deep Water Rig Oil Spill. A cynic would call BP’s interest in the PacX the most vulgar example of green washed PR trickery. The company’s 20-F report called 2011 a year of “tests” for the company.

Despite these the tribulations, BP's net assets grew to $112,482 from a total of $95,891 in the year 2010. The $16,591 million by which BP grew during its year of “grueling” tests could hypothetically pay for 331,820 of the grand prize grants that BP is offering to PacX at $50,000 a piece. A little is better than nothing, though.






Edited by Jennifer Russell


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