Reviewer Comments - EERE

More documents

Recommendations

Info

2011 Algae Platform Review – Reviewer Comments Reviewer Comments are direct transcripts of commentary and material provided by the Platform’s Review Panel. They have not been edited or altered by the Biomass Program. Reviewer: 6 Criteria Score: 5 Score: 5 It was a competant presentation of work presented, from each group, but very little of it was obviously linked to an overall goal of developing a single commercial production system. It was not clear if any single unit operation was aware of what the upstream unit operation was going to deliver and what the downstream unit operation was going to need to receive. One should be careful touting numbers like 0.11$ per gallon harvested (in the extraction section). Groups are always trying to insert cost instead of energy ratios, at each unit operation. It may sound great to have 0.11$ per gallon harvested, but if one process is processing streams that are 99.9% water, this is likely not such a low number when one considers the total amount of gallons to be processed. One should show how much energy (or power) is consumed per unit of fuel (or volumetric flowrate) processed. This ratio should be less than 10% of the overall system for extraction, and 15% for dewatering and harvesting (or 25% if combined into one step). It’s important that the use of cost is replaced by energy use in systems analysis. If the amount of energy used is less than that produced, the cost balance will sort it self out. But if more energy is consumed than produced, the cost balance will not sort itself out unless free sources of energy are leveraged into the system. One should not just state low energy input for the acoustic harvester. Low relative to WHAT? One should show the power input required per volumetric flow of fuel processed (and use this to develop an energy ratio). It is conerning to see respective extraction (or harvesting) devices touted without a proper metric for the energy consumed per unit energy produced. The project should be specific about the use of energy balances that track the unit energy consumed per unit energy produced. Reviewer: 7 Criteria Score: 6 Progress in Algal biology and cultivation are co-dependent and are not quantifiable until cultivation data is available, but the approach and technical expertise is a positive. There appears to be good progress in identification and preliminary testing of several novel technologies for harvesting and extraction. Because biology, cultivation, harvesting, and extraction will all have significant impact on oil and coproducts, much of the work on fuel conversion and feeding studies appears to be premature. Presenter Response As presented in the Peer Review, the NAABB program for strain selection flows into a cultivation pipeline that tests these strains in outdoor environments. This will provide screening for strain robustness against environmental factors such as predation, bacterial infections, etc. Our program also incorporates the development of technologies that will help provide resistance from such infections, through the addition of bacterial controlling substances and breakdown of biofilms produced by such organisms. Disease resistance is a good parameter to test and one we certainly keep in mind. Our initial selection is on growth and lipid productivity but we intend to put the best strains into a cultivation environment. NAABB is already monitoring progress in a number of ways, including: site visits by our project management team, monthly reports, financial and fiduciary reporting, face-to-face status reviews, monthly team meetings, bi-weekly meetings with team leads, and weekly meetings our operations, executive team and DOE. As our supporting slides show, the NAABB investigators have already credited the NAABB program with over 20 manuscripts in print or under review in peer reviewed journals. We have also developed a website with regular highlights. We have an obligation to protect intellectual property, make it available first to our partners for licensing opportunities. Once this obligation is met, any IP not licensed is then made available to the general public through the innovating institution. Further, NAABB investigators have made over 100 presentations at national and international conferences. Our investigators have and are coordinating technical sessions at national conferences. Page 12 of 223
2011 Algae Platform Review – Reviewer Comments Reviewer Comments are direct transcripts of commentary and material provided by the Platform’s Review Panel. They have not been edited or altered by the Biomass Program. Similarly, we are chairing and organizing an international conference in St. Louis later this year, in which many NAABB investigators will be presenting their work along with peers from the international community. We are in total agreement with the reviewer comments. For all of our harvesting and extraction processes we are developing a process flow model that determines all of the inputs and outputs both for mass balance and energy consumption and/or generation. These can then be converted to a cost analysis. The preliminary cost results presented for the LANL acoustic harvester represented the results from such a detailed analysis. 3. Project Relevance Please evaluate the degree to which: The project both identifies with and contributes to meeting the platform goals and objectives of the Biomass Program Multi-Year Program Plan The project has considered applications of the expected outputs Reviewer Comments Reviewer: 1 Criteria Score: 6 If the consortium can perform as a team, the relevance will be up there in scores. The potential is there. Reviewer: 2 Criteria Score: 8 Highly relevant and promising. Costing of all stages needs strong attention in year ahead. Reviewer: 3 Criteria Score: 8 Project is well aligned with the Algae Biomass MYPP and roadmap, and efforts are in direct support of this EERE program. Reviewer: 4 Criteria Score: 7 See Overall Impression text. Reviewer: 5 Criteria Score: 8 The stated goals are closely aligned with the platform goals. Reviewer: 6 Criteria Score: 7 Score 7: The presentation was very good in terms of presenting its talk under the umbrella of the Biomass Program's objectives, and the Program's output. Reviewer: 7 Criteria Score: 7 NAABB activities are a close reflection of the Biomass Mulit-Year Program Plan. Presenter Response The magnitude of the NAABB program makes it very challenging to put together a presentation for this type of review process. Therefore we strived at a 45-minute presentation that provides an overview of the NAABB framework, innovation, status, results, and strategy for the future. In most cases, when we presented innovation or results, we were faced with only the time to present a bullet, if at all presented. In some cases, we chose to provide a particular highlight of the scientific innovation and results from our program. Page 13 of 223
Page 1 and 2: 2011 Biomass Program Algae Platform
Page 3 and 4: 2011 Algae Platform Review - Review
Page 11: 2011 Algae Platform Review - Review
Page 63 and 64:
2011 Algae Platform Review - Review
Page 65 and 66:
Page 67 and 68:
Page 69 and 70:
Page 71 and 72:
Page 73 and 74:
Page 75 and 76:
Page 77 and 78:
Page 79 and 80:
Page 81 and 82:
Page 83 and 84:
Page 85 and 86:
Page 87 and 88:
Page 89 and 90:
Page 91 and 92:
Page 93 and 94:
Page 95 and 96:
Page 97 and 98:
Page 99 and 100:
Page 101 and 102:
Page 103 and 104:
Page 105 and 106:
Page 107 and 108:
Page 109 and 110:
Page 111 and 112:
Page 113 and 114:
Page 115 and 116:
Page 117 and 118:
Page 119 and 120:
Page 121 and 122:
Page 123 and 124:
Page 125 and 126:
Page 127 and 128:
Page 129 and 130:
Page 131 and 132:
Page 133 and 134:
Page 135 and 136:
Page 137 and 138:
Page 139 and 140:
Page 141 and 142:
Page 143 and 144:
Page 145 and 146:
Page 147 and 148:
Page 149 and 150:
Page 151 and 152:
Page 153 and 154:
Page 155 and 156:
Page 157 and 158:
Page 159 and 160:
Page 161 and 162:
Page 163 and 164:
Page 165 and 166:
Page 167 and 168:
Page 169 and 170:
Page 171 and 172:
Page 173 and 174:
Page 175 and 176:
Page 177 and 178:
Page 179 and 180:
Page 181 and 182:
Page 183 and 184:
Page 185 and 186:
Page 187 and 188:
Page 189 and 190:
Page 191 and 192:
Page 193 and 194:
Page 195 and 196:
Page 197 and 198:
Page 199 and 200:
Page 201 and 202:
Page 203 and 204:
Page 205 and 206:
Page 207 and 208:
Page 209 and 210:
Page 211 and 212:
Page 213 and 214:
Page 215 and 216:
Page 217 and 218:
Page 219 and 220:
Page 221 and 222:
Page 223:
show all

Reviewer Comments - EERE

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?