Reviewer Comments - EERE

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.
genetics aspects of the project.
The nanobody research is meant to help in harvesting of algae, biofilm growth of algae, and provide a
research tool. Algae can be flocculated and can grow in biofilms without nanobodies, so the importance is
not clear. Nothing was said about the potential research applications of nanobodies.
The slides do not provide much information about the photobioreactor research. However, PBRs were a
larger component of the oral presentation. The speaker was not able to effectively defend the use of PBRs
for biofuel production. The well-know problems include excessive total costs, the likelihood of negative
energy ROI, and difficulty in controlling heating and gas exchange. When asked about the method of
cooling, the speaker said that evaporation of the water will cool the system but that water loses would be
minimal due to the double-layered design of the PBR. Of course, if the water re-condenses within the
system, heat is not removed. The speaker did not appear to have the basic knowledge needed to design
PBRs.
Reviewer: 5
Although I agree that basic research may lead to improvements in strains and downstream processing,
there was no aspect of this research that seemed likely to yield such improvements.
Reviewer: 6
Tethered microalgal cells and photobioreactors for commercial scale production of microalgae is severly
challenged.
Reviewer: 7
From a process engineering perspective the project has failed to define a method for evaluating the
commercial viability of concepts and has not defined criteria for success and decision points based on
commerical scale processing requirements. Because proposed technologies of PBRs and nano-antibody
structures have well defined techno economic hurdles, a clear pathway to overcome those hurdles is
needed before meaningful research commences.
Presenter Response
The team at UNL, the PI, and the presenter appreciate the efforts and contributions of the review group in
facilitating the achievement of the goals for the DOE algae biomass platform. While recognizing the
contributions of the review team and the demands placed by the need to review a large number of projects
in a short period of time, it is clear that the format of a 15-minute PowerPoint presentation followed by 5
minutes of questions is apparently inadequate for the reviewers to grasp the scope and vision of the UNL
programs in algae biofuels and biotechnology. First the UNL team recognizes the importance of assessing
the short-term needs of open raceway production of algae biomass as an initial step toward understanding
the economical growth of algae at scale and the challenges faced with scale-up. These steps towards
growing algae with 30 to 60 year old technology but at a much larger scale are indeed meritorious in
actually achieving experience of algae production at 10 to 1000 hectare scales. In this context the UNL
team applauds the landmark works by Dr John Benneman in the Aquatic Species Program that
summarized the technology of 1980 to 1996 and predicted the production of algae biofuels at $60 per
barrel. We also are well aware of the recent highly detailed and very sound techno-economic analysis by
Dr Benneman and one of the reviewers that suggest it is impossible to produce algae at less than
$300/barrel as of the review in 2010 with current technologies of open raceway growth. We also are
aware of the recent techno-economic reviews that suggest economic biofuels production with algae is
nearly impossible with raceway design, hexane extraction (a well known neurotoxin), and
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