Sustainable Development of Algal Biofuels CALL FOR NOMINATIONS The Department of Energy Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy's Office of Biomass Program (DOE EERE-OBP) has commissioned the National Academies' Board on Agriculture and Natural Resources and Board on Energy and Environmental Systems to examine the promise of sustainable development of algal biofuels, identify potential concerns and unforeseen sustainability challenges and unintended consequences for a range of approaches to algal biofuels production, explore ways to address those challenges, and suggest appropriate indicators, and metrics that can inform future assessments of environmental performance and social acceptance associated with sustainability. The study will
* Identify the potential sustainability concerns for commercial production (including larger centralized and smaller distributed facilities) of algal biofuels associated with a selected number of different pathways of biomass production and conversion. Potential concerns to be addressed could include the availability and use of land, water, and nutrient resources, human health and safety associated with feedstock cultivation and processing, potential toxicity associated with algal metabolites and their adverse impacts on downstream co-products, use of genetically modified organisms, and other impacts that are of social and environmental concern. * Identify information or data gaps related to the impacts of algal biofuels production. * Suggest indicators and metrics to be used to assess sustainability concerns across the algal biofuels supply chain and data to be collected now to establish baseline and to assess sustainability. Identify indicators that are most critical to address or have the greatest potential for improvement through DOE intervention. This input will inform DOE EERE-OBP's broader analysis of biofuels and bioenergy sustainability. * Using selected approaches as illustrations, discuss whether any, or combinations of, the identified challenges could present major sustainability concerns. Identify preferred cost-and-benefit analyses that could best aid in the decision-making process, and discuss whether those decisions could be performance based and technology neutral. The study will be conducted by a committee of 15 members appointed by the National Academies. We are seeking your nominations for potential committee members, and they may include scientists and experts familiar with current basic and applied research in algal biofuels production, including research on biomass production, algal biomass conversion, and fuels synthesis; algal ecology; environmental science and impact analysis, and social scientists. Potential committee members may be academics, government employees, and individuals from nongovernmental organizations or industry. Please suggest individuals who are broadly knowledgeable, distinguished within their respective communities, and able to work well with others in analyzing information and developing consensus. The final committee will include a mixture of perspectives that will contribute to the study's ability to develop supportable conclusions about the sustainable development of algal biofuels. Please provide your suggestions for potential committee members by October 31, 2010. Contact Evonne Tang (202-334-3648, et...@nas.edu) or K. John Holmes (202-334-2045, jhol...@nas.edu) for more information.
