The growing concern about where energy rich chemicals for the future will come from has stimulated a resurgence of interest in the potentialities of microbial fermentations to assist in meeting anti­ cipated demands for fuels and chemicals. While much attention has been given recently to the early deployment of alcohol production plants and similar currently available technologies, the potential future developments have received much less attention. One of the intentions of the present symposium was to look ahead and try to perceive some of the prospects for future fermentation technology. In order to accomplish this, a symposium program of sizable diversity was developed with workers giving