MARK FINKELSTEIN National Renewable Energy Laboratory BRIAN H. DAVISON Oak Ridge National Laboratory The proceedings of the 19th symposium on Biotechnologyfor Fuels and Chemicals, held in Colorado Springs, Colorado, May 4-8, 1997, had over 200 attendees. This meeting continues to provide a unique forum for the presentation of new applications and recent research advances in the production of fuels and chemicals through biotech nology. The utilization of renewable resources, and in particular cellulosic biomass, has broad implications in today's world of green house gases, global warming,...

th With the 25 Symposium, we continued the tradition of providing an informal, congenial atmosphere that our participants found conducive to discussing technical program topics. This year's topics included: Session lA Feedstock Supply, Logistics, Processing, and Composition Session IB Enzyme Catalysis and Engineering Session 2 Microbial Catalysis and Engineering Session 3 Bioprocessing including Separations Session 4 Biotechnology for Fuels and Chemicals-Past, Present, and Future Session 5 Biobased Industrial Chemicals Session 6A Biomass Pretreatment and Hydrolysis Session 6B Plant...

With the Twenty-Third Symposium, we sustained the tradition of providing an informal, congenial atmosphere that our participants find conducive to pursuing technical discussion of program topics. The techni cal program consisted of six sessions with 38 oral presentations, a roundtable forum, two special topic discussions and a poster session con sisting of 230 posters. A special luncheon talk on "Natural Capitalism" by Karl Rabago of the Rocky Mountain Institute was particularly enlightening. More infor mation on these provocative approaches to resources and societal needs can be found at...

BRIAN H. DAVISON Oak Ridge National Laboratory MARK FINKELSTEIN National Renewable Energy Laboratory CHARLES E. WYMAN Oak Ridge National Laboratory The Eighteenth Symposium on Biotechnology for Fuels and Chemi cals continues to provide a forum for the presentation of research results and the exchange of ideas on advances in biotechnology for the produc tion of fuels and chemicals. Although the emphasis is on utilization of renewable resources, the scope of the Symposium is broader than this and includes bioconversion of fossil fuels and syngas and the new area of conversions in nonaqueous...

active industrial participation in the organizing committee. Recently, the conference has begun a regular informal industrial roundtable (Session 4). This has become very popular as it allows industrial participants to speak more openly. For a broader perspective, R. James Woolsey, Former Direc tor of Central Intelligence Agency, gave an after-dinner address on "Wagon Trains for the 21st Century: The Role for Biorefineries. " He urged the attendees of the importance of their efforts to develop renewable, benign processes for the United States and the world based on both security and...

153 posters. While plant biotechnology for enzyme production and designer biomass merged as "hot topics" throughout the Symposium, the preface for each session is included in the introductions. Special topic discussions were led on "Brazilian Bioethanol Progress" by Gisella Zanin, State University of Maringa, Brazil, and on "Nontradi tional Bioprocessing" by Gene Petersen, National Renewable Energy Labo ratory, Golden, CO. A tour of the Colorado Bioprocessing Center, a "state of the art" con tract research facility at Colorado State University highlighted the process development and scale-up...

In the Seventeenth Symposium on Biotechnology for Fuels and Chemicals, leading researchers from academia, industry, and government present state-of-the-art papers on how bioengineering can be used to produce fuels and chemicals competitively. This year's program covered topics in thermal, chemical, and biological processing; applied biological processing; bioprocessing research; process economics and commercialization; and environmental biotechnology. The ideas and techniques described will play an important role in developing new biological processes for producing fuels and chemicals on a...

The increased attendance required concurrent sessions for the 48 oral presentations and 190 submitted posters (for more details see Website: www.ct.ornl.gov/symposium). Attendees came from Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Hungary, India, Japan, Korea, Mexico, The Netherlands, Russia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, and Ven ezuela, as well as from the United States. This international perspective was continued in a Special Topic Ses sion sponsored by the International Energy Agency (lEA) Bioenergy Pro gram on Biofuels and chaired by Jack...

lysts using enzyme, microbial, and plantbiochemistriesand genetic engi neeringand "ProcessingResearch" describedtheconversionofplantcom ponentsviaintegrationofmicrobiology, biochemistry, andchemistrywith engineering, separations, and hybrid systems. The "Enzymatic Processes and Enzyme Production" session focused on the manufacture and use of enzymes. The"IndustrialChemicals"sessionemphasizedrecentdevelop mentsintheintegratedproductionandscale-upofchemicalsfrombiologi cal rather than petrochemical routes. Special interest was on separation methods and their integrationintonew fermentation...