Reviewer Comments - EERE

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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: 3 Criteria Score: 10 A variety of complementary approaches are being pursued, which increases chances of success. Reviewer: 4 Criteria Score: 8 The use of consortia is essential for coordinating research on the many steps in the algae biofuels production chain. This approach was a good choice, but flexibility should be maintained, allowing new participants and technologies to enter/exit existing consortia where appropriate and useful, as determined by the PIs and the DOE managers. The existing practice of at least weekly contact of DOE managers with the major consortia should be helpful in achieving good results. Although time-consuming for the managers, such coordination should facilitate the continual improvement and adjustment of the research plan. The DOE managers should assist in the rapid culling of technologies from a consortium that are not likely to meet economic, energy balance, or LCA criteria. The PIs may have difficulty severing relationships with collaborators without some outside impetus, although there is no evidence of that problem thus far. A general weakness of many of the project presentations was a lack of well-defined technology down-select criteria nor any a priori quantitative estimates of technology performance in terms of cost, energy balance, and LCA. While the national labs are generating open-source TEA and LCA software, good initial assessments should be done by the project proponents at the proposal phase, then to be updated at least annually during the project. These assessments should be gaged against performance criteria set by the OBP algae managers. If fact, these suggestions may have already been implemented at the proposal phase, but then not emphasized in the presentation template used for the review. Related to the above discussion, the algae program should fund both basic and applied research, with the majority being applied. Each project should strive to define to what extent the research is basic or applied. This would aid particular reviewers who are prone to prefer applied work to give an allowance for the apparent lack of immediate practicality of some of the projects. However, the main value in better defining basic/applied would be to prevent basic science projects being presented as applied, which comes across poorly to reviewers. Many of the individual projects, not consortia, are also valuable. Of course, independent approaches are needed, perhaps funded on a seed basis, to be incorporated into consortia as results warrant. The algae program managers should work to coordinate research funding and RFPs with ARPA-e, the Office of Science, NETL, and the USDA. The OBP algae program should be involved in all DOE algae work because the algae program managers have already become expert in the topic and duplication of expertise and uncoordinated research funding is undesirable. Of course, the rapid rise and fall of funding for the algae program is detrimental to sustaining the research groups who will bring algae biofuel to fruition over the long-run. Algae biofuel development will need to be a well-funded on-going effort even if early success is found. The implementation, maintenance, and improvement of productivity on tens of thousands of hectares of algae production will require on-going effort akin to the agricultural research funded by USDA. Inclusion of non-fuel co-products as valid research topics in the algae program should be continued. Of course, the link to biofuel production must still be present. One exception to that requirement would be if the algae technology has promise for leading to significant savings in fossil fuel consumption or greenhouse gas emissions. These two benefits should be considered nearly as valuable as actual transportation fuel production. Coming to a smaller detail, the proposal review process may need to be improved based on some of the marginal projects presenting during the review. The small pool of algae production experts to choose from could be the source of the problem. The OBP should continue to expand their list of potential reviewers. Members of the Aquatic Species Program are good candidates since they have longer experience and more expertise than many in the field today. The panel used in this program review had a good diversity of expertise and experience. Genetic engineering expertise is important to have in algae reviews. Reviewer: 5 Criteria Score: 8 Good presentation of Platform approaches and portfolio. Page 4 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. Reviewer: 6 Criteria Score: 0 Reviewer: 7 Criteria Score: 6 The approach of having one large, highly funded consortium working in parallel with two smaller consortia and multiple academic and private projects is likely to produce redundancies. Bringing the dispersed efforts into focus on the key technical hurdles is daunting. 3. Progress Please evaluate the degree to the Platform is progressing towards achieving Biomass Program and Platform goals, specifically in reference to: meeting performance targets and likelihood of achieving the goals presented. Please provide recommendations for improvements for tracking progress. Reviewer Comments Reviewer: 1 Criteria Score: 4 Based on the individual presentations, it does not appear likely that the platform goals will be met. I think the OBP should be hardening these goals/milestones/deliverables for the total platform and for each of the individual pieces. I am not speaking about making the FY2013 technology selections now, I am saying that it does not appear that the component deliverables to allow the FY2013 selection have been formulated with enough clarity and detail to maximize the likelihood of selecting in FY2013. With these deliverables in hand, meet with the various projects to map their contributions onto this same deliverable timeline. Then attempt to build a fire. I presume since funds have been spent totally, and unless these timelines and deliverables were built into the contracts originally, then there is little recourse except to convince the project leaders of the value of delivering in line with the Platform. Again these need to be hard-wired and not general deliverables. Reviewer: 2 Criteria Score: 4 The largest project has excellent personnel and multiple scales; it is the place where there is the most promise of success. It is essential that this project doesn't get too side-tracked by "neat stuff"; basic and applied scientists and engineers in this project need to know on a monthly basis what each group has found that advances the project. Some of the "sampling from the wild" for feedstock improvement is a little too much like a fishing expedition; little hypothesis-testing was evident in sampling location selection. Many models appear completely unrealistic (poor research of input data, lack of ground-truthing and consideration of multiuses of land area, sea level rise projections affecting coastal projects, etc.). In general, too many projects exhibited a failure to know the background literature related to their project goals. The best targets are likely to be non-GMO species because open systems are too subject to bird dispersal. Thus, the "neat stuff" related to transformation should be evenly balanced by traditional strain selection. Reviewer: 3 Criteria Score: 10 Too early to judge, as this is just the beginning of this program. Nevertheless, this first-time peer review process showed a vibrant group on investigators and truly dedicated program staff. Reviewer: 4 Criteria Score: 9 The creation of the Roadmap and the MYPP early in the program was important. Most of the projects Page 5 of 223
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Reviewer Comments - EERE

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