BP Amoco p.l.c. has pledged $15 million and Ford Motor Co. has pledged $5 million over 10 years to fund the Carbon Mitigation Initiative (CMI), a research project to develop solutions to the greenhouse problem.

Using an approach known as carbon sequestration, the project's goal is to develop and evaluate methods for keeping carbon emissions--the main contributor to greenhouse warming--out of the atmosphere by stowing it safely within the earth.

"The greenhouse problem is one of the most important environmental and social issues confronting the world for the next half century or more," said coprincipal investigator Robert Socolow, professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering. "Princeton is a university with strengths in many of the critical areas that need to be developed to make progress in solving this problem."

The greenhouse problem, caused by sustained use of fossil (carbon-based) fuels, is creating a dramatic increase in the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Changes in carbon dioxide levels are linked to changes in climate. If carbon emissions continue unchecked, significant shifts in global climate are inevitable.

This grant will fund research in three key areas:

* capturing carbon before and after use to achieve sharp reductions in the amount released into the atmosphere,

* determining where to put carbon after it has been captured, and

* understanding carbon's interaction with the environment over a wide range of time periods extending to hundreds of thousands of years.

The research will span work in geosciences, environmental science, geology, ecology, atmospheric and ocean science, chemistry, and civil, mechanical, and chemical engineering.

A key component of this work will be to evaluate the feasibility of switching to alternative hydrogen fuels. Such fuels would be created by transforming conventional fossil fuels into hydrogen and carbon dioxide. The hydrogen would be used as fuel, and the carbon, in the form of carbon dioxide, would be returned to underground reservoirs similar to the ones from which it came.

Throughout the project, the researchers will investigate the safety of returning large amounts of carbon to the deep subsurface.

CMI builds upon and adds new focus to a range of established research projects at Princeton, and draws on the expertise of scientists and petroleum engineers at BP. Teams of scientists on campus are deeply engaged in efforts such as understanding the way carbon cycles between the earth's living organisms, its oceans, and atmosphere, and how that cycle drives changes in climate; developing technology for hydrogen-based fuels; and analyzing potential approaches to carbon sequestration.

BP Amoco produces natural gas and markets energy and electricity in North America. Ford Motor Co. manufactures automobiles.