The production of algae-derived biodiesel is comprised of several consecutive steps: algae growth, dewatering, drying (if
needed), oil extraction, oil esterification, and a process for energy
recovery from the oil-extracted algae. In the following subsections,
each of these process steps are briefly reviewed and the corresponding assumptions for each process are explained. The inputs
to the LCA model were divided into two types: (a) key process
parameters which can vary over a specified range and (b) fixed
model parameters. The input parameters have been assigned to
one of these two groups by mutually considering the extent to
which each parameter was expected to affect the outputs, and