A group of experts are slated to speak on the commercialization of biofuels at the 31st Symposium on Biotechnology for Fuels and Chemicals on May 3-6 in San Francisco. Speakers will include scientists from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), the Energy Biosciences Institute (EBI), the Department of Energy’s Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI) and UC Berkeley, as well as private companies.

Sessions will focus on a variety of special topics: Biorefinery Deployment, highlighting recent progress in developing and operating demonstration-scale and commercial-scale integrated biorefineries; Biofuels Logistics and Sustainability, touching on the the potential of lignocellulosic biomass; International Commercialization of 2nd Generation Biofuels, presenting on recent international progress to accelerate deployment of advanced biofuels technologies; Development and Commercialization of Algal-based Biofuels, focusing on efforts underway to develop and commericalize algal-based biofuels; and Emerging Biofuels and Chemicals: highlighting on research and development of new fuels and chemicals from renewable feedstocks.

The meeting is organized by the Society for Industrial Microbiology, and hosted by NREL and ORNL, and sponsored by the Department of Energy’s Biomass Program. Cosponsors include EBI, NREL, ORNL, JBEI and other national laboratories and private companies.

More than 800 are expected to attend the event. For more information, go to http://www.simhq.org/meetings/sbfc2009/index.html.