Talk:Microbial Biofuels: Current Production and Future Prospects

Really great page! In general it flows really well and definitely makes sense. It is well edited and very thorough. This is a little nit-picky, but there was one sentence in your first section that sounded a little awkward to me: "Although many microbes have been used in ethanol production, the yeast species Saccharomyces cerevisiae is primarily used in industry, using starch and sugars from plants as the starting material for the process." Also, it may just be a stylistic thing, but I wasn't sure it was totally effective to identify so many research groups in your prose. It may be better to explain the research and have the citation at the end. But really those are very subtle points! I think it's a really, really good page.

Overall, I liked your use of data and your accompanying explanations in the text. I also thought the variety of topics you addressed was very effective. One thing you may want to consider talking about in your first section that explains the challenges of plant biofuels is water limitations. Fresh water is rapidly becoming scarce, and finding the requisite water to grow plants for biofuel production will be increasingly difficult. You could also touch on food security. When food grains were first allocated towards biofuels, the price of food increased enormously and threatened food supplies in developing countries. In the alternative feedstocks section, I was wondering where the fatty acids you discussed might come from in the real world. I liked that you included how glycerols can come from industrial waste byproducts, which seems like one of the most promising alternatives to fossils fuels because it doesn't incur all of the other environmental costs associated with growing copious amounts of plants for starting materials. I particularly liked the last section about efflux pumps. It's one of the concerns with biofuels that people rarely consider, so I'm very glad you chose to include it. Another thing you could consider is having a final conclusion paragraph at the end, in which you sum up the relative advantages and disadvantages and maybe present the most breakthrough/exciting technology to date.

Again, great job!! Very informative and interesting page.

(Hildy Joseph)

Hi Michael,

Overall, I really think you've got a good page here. It's easy to follow and very clear. You do use the transition "furthermore" a lot, but if you want to change that, that's up to you. Here are some specific comments:

Intro: You use the phrases "economically unsustainable" and "environmentally unsustainable" very close together. This isn't really a problem; it just seems a bit repetitive. You use the phrase "both fine-tuning biofuel-producing microbes or" - the or should be an and. I agree with Hildy - the last sentence of the intro is a bit awkward. Current Microbial Biofuels: Your second sentence is a bit awkward. Consider rewording it. In your third sentence, "carbon stocks utilized by microbes" - there's a typo. Paragraph 2, Sentence 4 - You don't need a comma after "required." You use the phrase "instead pyruvate itself" - I think you could use either "instead" or "itself" to make the same point, but you don't need both. Paragraph 4, Sentence 3: You sort of use two transitions at the beginning of the sentence "However, in reality..." Again, I feel like you could get away with only one or the other. Fig. 1: italicize S. cerevisiae Z. mobilius and E. coli section: The second clause of your first sentence is awkward. You could consider bumping the first paragraph up to the previous section. I think it would serve really well as a transition into this one. However, where it is right now, both subsections of this section are of equal length. Paragraph 2, Sentence 3: You don't need a comma after "unique" Paragraph 2, last sentence: You don't need the "and" Paragraph 3, Sentence 2: I feel like you can cut out "the research group of" from this sentence. Paragraph 3, Sentence 5: same comment. Paragraph 4, Sentence 3: italicize E. coli; you don't need a comma before "because." Paragraph 4, last sentence: "which has" - should be "which have" since the verb references the environmental conditions, not E. coli Lignocellulose section: Paragraph 1, Sentence 5: I think you've got a typo in your verb tense. Paragraph 3, Sentence 2: You don't need a comma after "processing." Paragraph 3, Sentence 3: see comment on using "the research group of." Paragraph 3, Sentence 6: This is a run-on sentence. Fig. 3: italicize both uses of E. coli. Recent Developments section: Do you really need both the section heading and the subsection heading here since there's only one subsection? Paragraph 1, Sentence 4: see comment on using "the research group of."

Again, I thought your page was great. I thought the figures were very effective and illustrated the points you discussed in the text. Your section on fatty acids and glycerol was kind of short - maybe consider sticking it on the end of the previous section?

Great job! (And thanks for the comments on my page.)

Marta