Multi-Year Analysis Plan Page 15
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80design is a “best case” design, with optimistic yields; the rationale being that if the optimistic case
is not economically viable, anything less cannot be economically viable either.
After developing the process design, the cost of the process option is estimated so that it can be
compared to current technology (if it exists) and other research options. A more advanced project
could require material and energy balance closures and capital cost quotes or even site-specific
designs. For projects on the commercial track, the level of robustness appropriate for assessing
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each gate in the process has been defined in the stage gate manual
and can be found in Appendix
B of this document.
Engineering analysis requires the proper techniques for the research project and platform. Those
techniques could involve agronomic engineering practices for designing and estimating new
harvesting equipment or they could involve chemical engineering material and energy balance
development and process economic estimations for new conversion and purification technology.
2.2.2
Assessment of R&D Progress
Research barriers are the technology areas that require improvement to make the process
commercially viable and where research funds should be focused. Process engineering and
analysis helps identify the barriers and the targets to overcome them – the parameter values that
make the process viable. These targets are the research program “off-ramps”; the point at which a
certain barrier has been overcome and further research is not warranted.
To determine research barriers and targets for a model product, that product’s output goal must be
selected and a process model that results in that output goal must be developed. Determining the
output goals for each platform’s model product(s) is important in this area because the ultimate
results are the outcomes and benefits discussed above and the outcomes and benefits are most
affected by the model products.
The output goals need to be selected using intermediate outcome analysis. That process requires
that one model market size for various fuel prices to develop demand curves and then look for the
market-tipping output on the demand curve. A market-tipping output is the fuel price where the
renewable fuel enters the market in a significant way and should be the programmatic target For
example, if the target market size is 12 MM gal/yr and the demand curve in Figure 6 (above)
were used, the output goal would be $1.12/gal.
Once the target output for the product has been selected, a conceptual process design to produce
the product complete with capital and operating costs needs to be developed. The design should
be based on equipment that is either available now or can be developed, and on process
parameters from actual data or reasonable targets achievable with research. It also needs to
interface with goals from other program areas (e.g., feedstock costs and physical conditions need
to match the feedstock platform targets). A process model should be developed that includes mass
balances, and energy balances once the research enters stage 3 or stage B in the stage gate
program. The process model allows one to conduct sensitivity analysis on the process unit
operations to understand which areas have the most cost sensitivity and where the barriers are.
Yield and process parameters (e.g., temperatures and catalyst addition rates) will be used as
research targets and so need to be estimated in conjunction with project management staff that are
involved in multi-year planning for that project area.
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NREL. “Stage Gate Management in the Biomass Program.” April 2003.
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