Research efforts have investigated a range of system designs for algae growth and conversion into biofuels. The economic feasibility and environmental impact of these systems are frequently evaluated through techno-economic analyses (TEA) and life-cycle assessment (LCA), which typically determine the levelized cost of fuel production in gallons of gasoline equivalent (MFSP, in $-gge⁻¹), global warming potential (GWP, in g CO₂-eq-MJ_fuel⁻¹), and net energy ratio (NER, unitless). While the outputs from these models seem comparable, the results often conceal the impact of a large number of assumptions inherent to the modeling, limiting direct comparisons. As such, a direct comparison of the modeling results as published can be misleading due to differences in critical assumptions and/or foundational methodology. This work applies harmonization methodology to several sustainability assessment studies found in the literature with the goal of enhancing comparability through implementation of a standard set of assumptions. For the economic evaluation, two harmonization efforts were performed: the first focused on harmonizing productivity, economic assumptions, and cost year for the entire growth to product process; the second compared only downstream fuel conversion technologies by fixing the biomass cost, thereby removing the uncertainty of upstream-growth assumptions. For LCA, harmonization focused on productivity and system boundary. The results of these efforts show a decrease of 43% in the range of reported fuel prices and minimal redcution in the range of LCA results. Both TEA and LCA harmonization efforts then investigated the impact of productivity by simulating a range of biomass productivity values (12.5, 25, and 50 g-m⁻² day⁻¹). The work reveals limitations to both the economic and environmental benefits of productivity improvements past approximately 35 g-m⁻² day⁻¹. Results highlight the need to redirect research efforts not only to increase productivities, but also to other areas where investments can make a greater impact in terms of economic viability and environmental impact.

研究工作已经研究了一系列用于藻类生长和转化为生物燃料的系统设计。这些系统的经济可行性和环境影响经常通过技术经济分析（TEA）和生命周期评估（LCA）进行评估，这些评估通常确定以加仑汽油当量（MFSP，g-gge）为单位的燃料生产成本^-1），全球变暖潜能值（GWP，单位为g CO ₂ -eq-MJ_燃料^-1）和净能量比（NER，无单位）。尽管这些模型的输出看起来具有可比性，但结果通常掩盖了建模固有的大量假设的影响，从而限制了直接比较。这样，由于关键假设和/或基础方法的差异，所发布的建模结果的直接比较可能会产生误导。这项工作将协调方法应用于文献中发现的一些可持续性评估研究中，目的是通过执行一组标准的假设来增强可比性。为了进行经济评估，进行了两项协调工作：第一项工作集中于协调生产率，经济假设和整个产品生产过程中的成本年。第二种方法通过固定生物量成本仅比较了下游燃料转化技术，从而消除了上游增长假设的不确定性。对于LCA，协调集中在生产率和系统边界上。这些努力的结果表明，报告的燃油价格范围内下降了43％，而LCA结果范围内的最小化削减。然后，TEA和LCA的协调工作都通过模拟一系列生物量生产率值（12.5、25和50 gm）来研究生产率的影响。^-2 天^-1）。这项工作揭示了生产率提高超过约35 gm ^-2 天^-1的经济和环境效益的局限性。结果突出表明，不仅需要提高研究效率，还需要将研究工作重定向到其他领域，在这些领域中投资可以对经济可行性和环境影响产生更大的影响。