Iowa's anger over Trump's ethanol policy gives Democrats opening


NEW YORK (Reuters) - In a speech last month to farmers in Texas, President Donald Trump won applause as he talked up recent U.S. trade agreements. When he tried to boast of his administration’s ethanol policy, however, he was met with silence.


Iowa swung sharply to Trump’s Republicans in the 2016 presidential election, but Democrats hope anger over a relaxation of rules mandating use of ethanol by U.S. refineries could put the corn-producing state in the win column this year.

Get the latest from the Iowa caucuses: here

“I think they haven’t solved the farmers’ problems in terms of ensuring farmers will have a consistent market for the ethanol that they produce,” said Wayne Moyer, a political science professor at Grinnell College in Grinnell, Iowa. “It’s a sore spot.”

Federal rules require refineries to blend 15 billion gallons of conventional biofuels like ethanol, which is made primarily from corn, into the nation’s fuel pool every year. Refiners have long sought waivers exempting them from these rules, while corn growers argue they are crucial to sustain ethanol demand.

Over the past two years, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has granted more than 30 waivers to refineries, including facilities owned by Exxon Mobil and Chevron Corp, stoking the ire of farmers and spurring numerous meetings in which the White House has tried to placate growers’ anger.

In addition, farmers bore the brunt of the retaliatory tariffs on soybeans and other products imposed by China during an 18-month trade war with the United States. As the world’s second-largest economy stopped buying U.S. agricultural goods, American farmers had to adapt to a smaller export market.

While many farmers were willing to make that sacrifice to target what they saw as China’s uncompetitive behavior, they were less obliging when it came to giving up demand for their products in what they saw as a concession to the oil industry.

“If we saw some other wrong turn by the EPA ... then I think we’re going to have to take a hard look at the political situation,” said Mark Marquis, chief executive officer of Illinois-based ethanol producer Marquis Energy.

Iowa sells more corn and produces more ethanol than any other U.S. state, according to federal data. Ethanol supports about 40,000 jobs in Iowa, according to the Iowa Renewable Fuels Association.


Some Democrats, including former Vice President Joe Biden, and Pete Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, have highlighted the issue heading into the Iowa nominating contest on Monday, the first leg in the race to determine who will face Trump in the Nov. 3 election.

“President Trump has lied to Iowa farmers at every turn. He promised to ‘unleash ethanol’ but instead all he’s done is secretly unleash Big Oil from its renewable fuel obligations,” Biden tweeted in August.

Iowa could be crucial in this year’s presidential election. In the 2018 mid-term elections, two Republicans lost their re-election bids to the U.S. House of Representatives, giving Democrats a majority of the four congressional districts.

“The president is going to be challenged by farmers over the next nine months on whether or not he’s ethanol-friendly,” U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley, a Republican from Iowa who advocates for use of biofuels, said in a call with reporters in January.

(GRAPHIC: Iowa's ethanol, corn production tmsnrt.rs/2sR4j9k)


FILE PHOTO - U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, U.S., January 30, 2020. REUTERS/Leah Millis
‘HIT AT THE KNEECAPS’

In August, the EPA granted 31 refinery exemptions, sparking outrage from the biofuels industry. There have been around 20 ethanol plant shutdowns since November 2018, equal to about 1.2 billion gallons of annual capacity, though some have reopened. The oil industry says the waivers do not destroy ethanol demand.

U.S. Representative Abby Finkenauer, a first-term Democrat from Iowa who defeated a Republican incumbent in 2018, has endorsed Biden’s presidential campaign, saying he understands the industry’s importance in the state and would stabilize renewable fuel policies.

“What we have seen specifically from Trump and his administration has been going back on words after hands have been shook,” she said.

“The tariffs affected the beans and the ethanol has affected the corn. We’re getting hit at the kneecaps,” said Trent Hatlen, who farms 1,000 acres of corn and soybeans in Rembrandt, Iowa. He said he is likely to support Biden on Monday.

The White House, in a statement, touted its promotion of American ethanol, including the approval of E15, a higher-ethanol blend of gasoline, for year-round use, which had been previously prohibited.

The signing of trade agreements, particularly the Phase 1 deal between the United States and China and the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, has boosted Trump’s standing among farmers.
Among those polled in late December who said they or an immediate family member were working in agriculture, 49% approved of the way Trump is handling U.S. farming, up from 43% in September, while 40% disapproved, a Reuters/Ipsos poll showed.

That support may withstand Democrats’ efforts to target Iowa.

“There’s still plenty of time to see what the world looks like between now and November,” said Nick Bowdish, the CEO of Elite Octane near Atlantic, Iowa, and Siouxland Ethanol near Jackson, Nebraska.

SEE https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=BIOFUELS

Court strikes Trump EPA rule for full-year 15% ethanol sales

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — A federal appeals court on Friday threw out a Trump-era Environmental Protection Agency rule change that allowed for the sale of a 15% ethanol gasoline blend in the summer months.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

The decision deals a significant blow to the ethanol industry and corn farmers who grow the crop from which the fuel additive is made. They had anticipated increased ethanol demand through year-round sales of the higher blend.


Most gasoline sold in the U.S. today is blended with 10% ethanol. Corn farmers and ethanol refiners have pushed for the government to allow the widespread sale of a 15% ethanol blend.

The Trump administration made the change to fulfill a campaign promise to Midwest farmers. The EPA under President Donald Trump announced the change in May 2019, ending a summer ban on the E15 blend. Provisions of the Clean Air Act have prohibited the sale of certain fuels with a higher volatility from June 1 through Sept. 15 to limit smog. Congress has allowed 10% ethanol, and the EPA in its 2019 ruling revised the interpretation of the exemption to federal law to include the 15% ethanol blend.

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Ethanol supporters contend that using more of the corn-based renewable fuel is better for the environment and helps meet federal climate change goals.

Three judges on the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia issued Friday's decision. They said it's clear from federal law that Congress balanced “wide-ranging economic, energy-security, and geopolitical implications” and that the wording of the law “reflects a compromise, not simply a desire to maximize ethanol production at all costs.” They concluded Congress did not intend to allow ethanol blends higher than 10% to be widely sold year-round. They said the EPA overstepped its authority.

The American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers, the trade group for the petroleum industry that challenged the EPA decision, said the court simply followed government's interpretation of the law in effect for 30 years.

“There is no ambiguity in statute and the previous administration’s reinterpretation overstepped the will of Congress,” said AFPM President and CEO Chet Thompson.

The Iowa Corn Growers Association said it will continue to work with the Biden administration, Congress and state officials to maintain consumer access to E15 year-round.

"It does not make sense to reinstate barriers that could inhibit market access to a cleaner-burning fuel choice that combats climate change,” said Carl Jardon, a farmer from Randolph, Iowa, and president of the Iowa Corn Growers Association.

The decision is the second major court defeat for the ethanol industry in a week. On June 25, the U.S. Supreme Court said some petroleum refiners may exempt themselves from requirements to blend ethanol into the gasoline they produce, further cutting into the amount of ethanol blended into the national fuel supply.

Ethanol supporters could ask the full D.C. Circuit Court to review the decision of the three-judge panel. They also could ask Congress to change the law to allow for year around E15 sales.

The industry is hoping this year's sales will not be curtailed because by the time the court issues its mandate and the EPA is required to comply most of the summer season will have passed.

This is the third summer E15 sales have been allowed and there were indications sales were increasing. Sales jumped 24% in Iowa from 2019 to 2020, surpassing 60.5 million gallons in 2020, the Renewable Fuels Association reported. That increase was despite a 14% drop in the state's overall petroleum consumption from 2019 levels due to fewer people driving because of he coronavirus pandemic.

David Pitt, The Associated Press

MOONSHINE

Corn ethanol reduces carbon footprint, greenhouse gases

DOE/ARGONNE NATIONAL LABORATORY

Research News

 

A study conducted by researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory reveals that the use of corn ethanol is reducing the carbon footprint and diminishing greenhouse gases.

The study, recently published in Biofuels, Bioproducts and Biorefining, analyzes corn ethanol production in the United States from 2005 to 2019, when production more than quadrupled. Scientists assessed corn ethanol's greenhouse gas (GHG) emission intensity (sometimes known as carbon intensity, or CI) during that period and found a 23% reduction in CI.

According to Argonne scientists, corn ethanol production increased over the period, from 1.6 to 15 billion gallons (6.1 to 57 billion liters). Supportive biofuel policies -- such as the Environmental Protection Agency's Renewable Fuel Standard and California's Low-Carbon Fuel Standard -- helped generate the increase. Both of those federal and state programs evaluate the life-cycle GHG emissions of fuel production pathways to calculate the benefits of using renewable fuels.

To assess emissions, scientists use a process called life-cycle analysis, or LCA -- the standard method for comparing relative GHG emission impacts among different fuel production pathways.

"Since the late 1990s, LCA studies have demonstrated the GHG emission reduction benefits of corn ethanol as a gasoline alternative," noted Argonne senior scientist Michael Wang, who leads the Systems Assessment Center in the laboratory's Energy Systems division and is one of the study's principal investigators. "This new study shows the continuous downtrend of corn ethanol GHG emissions."

"The corn ethanol production pathway -- both in terms of corn farming and biorefineries -- has evolved greatly since 2005," observed Argonne analyst Uisung Lee, first author of the study. Lee pointed out that the study relied on comprehensive statistics of corn farming from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and of corn ethanol production from industry benchmark data.

Hoyoung Kwon, a coauthor, stated that U.S. corn grain yields improved by 15%, reaching 168 bushels per acre despite fertilizer inputs remaining constant and resulting in a decreased intensity in fertilizer input per bushel of corn harvested: reductions of 7% in nitrogen use and 18% in potash use.

May Wu, another co-author, added that ethanol yields increased 6.5%, with a 24% reduction in ethanol plant energy use.

"With the increased total volume and the reduced CI values of corn ethanol between 2005 and 2019, corn ethanol has resulted in a total GHG reduction of more than 500 million tons between 2005 and 2019," Wang emphasized. "For the United States, biofuels like corn ethanol can play a critical role in reducing our carbon footprint."

The Argonne team used Argonne's GREET® model for this study. Argonne developed GREET (the Greenhouse gases, Regulated Emissions, and Energy use in Technologies) model, a one-of-a-kind LCA analytical tool that simulates the energy use and emissions output of various vehicle and fuel combinations. Government, industry, and other researchers worldwide use GREET® for LCA modeling of corn ethanol and other biofuels.

###

The work is funded by DOE's Vehicle Technologies Office in the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy.

The Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy supports early-stage research and development of energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies to strengthen U.S. economic growth, energy security, and environmental quality.

Argonne National Laboratory seeks solutions to pressing national problems in science and technology. The nation's first national laboratory, Argonne conducts leading-edge basic and applied scientific research in virtually every scientific discipline. Argonne researchers work closely with researchers from hundreds of companies, universities, and federal, state and municipal agencies to help them solve their specific problems, advance America's scientific leadership and prepare the nation for a better future. With employees from more than 60 nations, Argonne is managed by UChicago Argonne, LLC for the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science.

The U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, visit https://energy.gov/science.

Researchers give yeast a boost to make biofuels from discarded plant matter

The new system streamlines the process of fermenting plant sugar to fuel by helping yeast survive industrial toxins

WHITEHEAD INSTITUTE FOR BIOMEDICAL RESEARCH

Research News

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IMAGE: WHITEHEAD INSTITUTE MEMBER GERALD FINK STANDING IN FRONT OF A FIELD OF THE GRASS MISCANTHUS GIGANTEUS, WHICH IS ANOTHER POTENTIAL SOURCE OF CELLULOSE THAT COULD BE CONVERTED TO ETHANOL.... view more 

CREDIT: PHOTO COURTESY OF FELIX LAM

More corn is grown in the United States than any other crop, but we only use a small part of the plant for food and fuel production; once people have harvested the kernels, the inedible leaves, stalks and cobs are left over. If this plant matter, called corn stover, could be efficiently fermented into ethanol the way corn kernels are, stover could be a large-scale, renewable source of fuel.

"Stover is produced in huge amounts, on the scale of petroleum," said Whitehead Institute Member and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) biology professor Gerald Fink. "But there are enormous technical challenges to using them cheaply to create biofuels and other important chemicals."

And so, year after year, most of the woody corn material is left in the fields to rot.

Now, a new study from Fink and MIT chemical engineering professor Gregory Stephanopolous led by MIT postdoctoral researcher Felix Lam offers a way to more efficiently harness this underutilized fuel source. By changing the growth medium conditions surrounding the common yeast model, baker's yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, and adding a gene for a toxin-busting enzyme, they were able to use the yeast to create ethanol and plastics from the woody corn material at near the same efficiency as typical ethanol sources such as corn kernels.

Sugarcoating the issue

For years, the biofuels industry has relied on microorganisms such as yeast to convert the sugars glucose, fructose and sucrose in corn kernels to ethanol, which is then mixed in with traditional gasoline to fuel our cars.

Corn stover and other similar materials are full of sugars as well, in the form of a molecule called cellulose. While these sugars can be converted to biofuels too, it's more difficult since the plants hold onto them tightly, binding the cellulose molecules together in chains and wrapping them in fibrous molecules called lignins. Breaking down these tough casings and disassembling the sugar chains results in a chemical mixture that is challenging for traditional fermentation microorganisms to digest.

To help the organisms along, workers in ethanol production plants pretreat high-cellulose material with an acidic solution to break down these complex molecules so yeast can ferment them. A side effect of this treatment, however, is the production of molecules called aldehydes, which are toxic to yeast. Researchers have explored different ways to reduce the toxicity of the aldehydes in the past, but solutions were limited considering that the whole process needs to cost close to nothing. "This is to make ethanol, which is literally something that we burn," Lam said. "It has to be dirt cheap."

Faced with this economic and scientific problem, industries have cut back on creating ethanol from cellulose-rich materials. "These toxins are one of the biggest limitations to producing biofuels at a low cost." said Gregory Stephanopoulos, who is the Willard Henry Dow Professor of Chemical Engineering at MIT.

Lending yeast a helping hand

To tackle the toxin problem, the researchers decided to focus on the aldehydes produced when acid is added to break down tough molecules. "We don't know the exact mechanism by which aldehydes attack microbes, so then the question was, if we don't really know what it attacks, how do we solve the problem?" Lam said. "So we decided to chemically convert these aldehydes into alcohol forms."

The team began looking for genes that specialized in converting aldehydes to alcohols, and landed on a gene called GRE2. They optimized the gene to make it more efficient through a process called directed evolution, and then introduced it into the yeast typically used for ethanol fermentation, Saccharomyces cerevisiae. When the yeast cells with the evolved GRE2 gene encountered aldehydes, they were able to convert them into alcohols by tacking on extra hydrogen atoms.

The resultant high levels of ethanol and other alcohols produced from the cellulose might have posed a problem in the past, but at this point Lam's past research came into play. In a 2015 paper from Lam, Stephanopoulos and Fink, the researchers developed a system to make yeast more tolerant to a wide range of alcohols, in order to produce greater volumes of the fuel from less yeast. That system involved measuring and adjusting the pH and potassium levels in the yeast's growth media, which chemically stabilized the cell membrane.

By combining this method with their newly modified yeast, "we essentially channeled the aldehyde problem into the alcohol problem, which we had worked on before," Lam said. "We changed and detoxified the aldehydes into a form that we knew how to handle."

When they tested the system, the researchers were able to efficiently make ethanol and even plastic precursors from corn stover, miscanthus and other types of plant matter. "We were able to produce a high volume of ethanol per unit of material using our system," Fink said. "That shows that there's great potential for this to be a cost-effective solution to the chemical and economic issues that arise when creating fuel from cellulose-rich plant materials."

Scaling up

Alternative fuel sources often face challenges when it comes to implementing them on a nationwide scale; electric cars, for example, require a nationwide charging infrastructure in order to be a feasible alternative to gas vehicles.

An essential feature of the researchers' new system is the fact that the infrastructure is already in place; ethanol and other liquid biofuels are compatible with existing gasoline vehicles so require little to no change in the automotive fleet or consumer fueling habits. "Right now [the US produces around] 15 billion gallons of ethanol per year, so it's on a massive scale," he said. "That means there are billions of dollars and many decades worth of infrastructure. If you can plug into that, you can get to market much faster."

And corn stover is just one of many sources of high-cellulose material. Other plants, such as wheat straw and miscanthus, also known as silvergrass, can be grown extremely cheaply. "Right now the main source of cellulose in this country is corn stover," Lam said. "But if there's demand for cellulose because you can now make all these petroleum-based chemicals in a sustainable fashion, then hopefully farmers will start planting miscanthus, and all these super dense straws."

In the future, the researchers hope to investigate the potential of modifying yeasts with these anti-toxin genes to create diverse types of biofuels such as diesel that can be used in typical fuel-combusting engines. "If we can [use this system for other fuel types], I think that would go a huge way toward addressing sectors such as ships and heavy machinery that continue to pollute because they have no other electric or non-emitting solution," Lam said.

CAPTION

In a new paper, researchers present a method to more efficiently produce biofuels from woody plant materials such as corn residues and some grasses.

CREDIT

Markus Distelrath/Pixabay

Engineered yeast could expand biofuels' 

reach

By making the microbes more tolerant to toxic byproducts, researchers show they can use a wider range of feedstocks, beyond corn.

MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

Research News

 

CAMBRIDGE, MA - Boosting production of biofuels such as ethanol could be an important step toward reducing global consumption of fossil fuels. However, ethanol production is limited in large part by its reliance on corn, which isn't grown in large enough quantities to make up a significant portion of U.S. fuel needs.

To try to expand biofuels' potential impact, a team of MIT engineers has now found a way to expand the use of a wider range of nonfood feedstocks to produce such fuels. At the moment, feedstocks such as straw and woody plants are difficult to use for biofuel production because they first need to be broken down to fermentable sugars, a process that releases numerous byproducts that are toxic to yeast, the microbes most commonly used to produce biofuels.

The MIT researchers developed a way to circumvent that toxicity, making it feasible to use those sources, which are much more plentiful, to produce biofuels. They also showed that this tolerance can be engineered into strains of yeast used to manufacture other chemicals, potentially making it possible to use "cellulosic" woody plant material as a source to make biodiesel or bioplastics.

"What we really want to do is open cellulose feedstocks to almost any product and take advantage of the sheer abundance that cellulose offers," says Felix Lam, an MIT research associate and the lead author of the new study.

Gregory Stephanopoulos, the Willard Henry Dow Professor in Chemical Engineering, and Gerald Fink, the Margaret and Herman Sokol Professor at the Whitehead Institute of Biomedical Research and the American Cancer Society Professor of Genetics in MIT's Department of Biology, are the senior authors of the paper, which appears today in Science Advances.

Boosting tolerance

Currently, around 40 percent of the U.S. corn harvest goes into ethanol. Corn is primarily a food crop that requires a great deal of water and fertilizer, so plant material known as cellulosic biomass is considered an attractive, noncompeting source for renewable fuels and chemicals. This biomass, which includes many types of straw, and parts of the corn plant that typically go unused, could amount to more than 1 billion tons of material per year, according to a U.S. Department of Energy study -- enough to substitute for 30 to 50 percent of the petroleum used for transportation.

However, two major obstacles to using cellulosic biomass are that cellulose first needs to be liberated from the woody lignin, and the cellulose then needs to be further broken down into simple sugars that yeast can use. The particularly aggressive preprocessing needed generates compounds called aldehydes, which are very reactive and can kill yeast cells.

To overcome this, the MIT team built on a technique they had developed several years ago to improve yeast cells' tolerance to a wide range of alcohols, which are also toxic to yeast in large quantities. In that study, they showed that spiking the bioreactor with specific compounds that strengthen the membrane of the yeast helped yeast to survive much longer in high concentrations of ethanol. Using this approach, they were able to improve the traditional fuel ethanol yield of a high-performing strain of yeast by about 80 percent.

In their new study, the researchers engineered yeast so that they could convert the cellulosic byproduct aldehydes into alcohols, allowing them to take advantage of the alcohol tolerance strategy they had already developed. They tested several naturally occurring enzymes that perform this reaction, from several species of yeast, and identified one that worked the best. Then, they used directed evolution to further improve it.

"This enzyme converts aldehydes into alcohols, and we have shown that yeast can be made a lot more tolerant of alcohols as a class than it is of aldehydes, using the other methods we have developed," Stephanopoulos says.

Yeast are generally not very efficient at producing ethanol from toxic cellulosic feedstocks; however, when the researchers expressed this top-performing enzyme and spiked the reactor with the membrane-strengthening additives, the strain more than tripled its cellulosic ethanol production, to levels matching traditional corn ethanol.

Abundant feedstocks

The researchers demonstrated that they could achieve high yields of ethanol with five different types of cellulosic feedstocks, including switchgrass, wheat straw, and corn stover (the leaves, stalks, and husks left behind after the corn is harvested).

"With our engineered strain, you can essentially get maximum cellulosic fermentation from all these feedstocks that are usually very toxic," Lam says. "The great thing about this is it doesn't matter if maybe one season your corn residues aren't that great. You can switch to energy straws, or if you don't have high availability of straws, you can switch to some sort of pulpy, woody residue."

The researchers also engineered their aldehyde-to-ethanol enzyme into a strain of yeast that has been engineered to produce lactic acid, a precursor to bioplastics. As it did with ethanol, this strain was able to produce the same yield of lactic acid from cellulosic materials as it does from corn.

This demonstration suggests that it could be feasible to engineer aldehyde tolerance into strains of yeast that generate other products such as diesel. Biodiesels could potentially have a big impact on industries such as heavy trucking, shipping, or aviation, which lack an emission-free alternative like electrification and require huge amounts of fossil fuel.

"Now we have a tolerance module that you can bolt on to almost any sort of production pathway," Stephanopoulos says. "Our goal is to extend this technology to other organisms that are better suited for the production of these heavy fuels, like oils, diesel, and jet fuel."

###

The research was funded by the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Institutes of Health.

Written by Anne Trafton, MIT News Office

Drunk mice sober up after a hormone shot

Peer-Reviewed Publication

CELL PRESS

 

IMAGE: FGF21 COUNTERACTS ALCOHOL INTOXICATION BY ACTIVATING THE NORADRENERGIC NERVOUS SYSTEM view more 

CREDIT: CELL METABOLISM/CHOI ET AL.

A hormone called fibroblast growth factor 21 (FGF21) protects mice against ethanol-induced loss of balance and righting reflex, according to a study publishing on March 7 in the journal Cell Metabolism.

“We’ve discovered that the liver is not only involved in metabolizing alcohol but that it also sends a hormonal signal to the brain to protect against the harmful effects of intoxication, including both loss of consciousness and coordination,” says co-senior study author Steven Kliewer of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center.

“We’ve further shown that by increasing FGF21 concentrations even higher by injection, we can dramatically accelerate recovery from intoxication. FGF21 does this by activating a very specific part of the brain that controls alertness,” says Kliewer.

The consumption of ethanol produced by the natural fermentation of simple sugars in ripening fruits and nectars can cause intoxication, impairing mobility and judgement. Animals that consume fructose and other simple sugars have evolved liver enzymes to break down ethanol.

FGF21 is a hormone that is induced in the liver by a variety of metabolic stresses, including starvation, protein deficiency, simple sugars, and ethanol. In humans, ethanol is by far the most potent inducer of FGF21 described to date. Previous studies showed that FGF21 suppresses ethanol preference, induces water drinking to prevent dehydration, and protects against alcohol-induced liver injury.

In the new study, Kliewer and co-senior study author David Mangelsdorf of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center show that FGF21 plays a broader role in defending against the harmful consequences of ethanol exposure than previously thought. In mice, FGF21 stimulated arousal from intoxication without changing the breakdown of ethanol. Mice lacking FGF21 took longer than their littermates to recover their righting reflex and balance following ethanol exposure. Conversely, pharmacologic FGF21 administration reduced the time needed for mice to recover from ethanol-induced unconsciousness and lack of muscle coordination.

Surprisingly, FGF21 did not counteract sedation caused by ketamine, diazepam, or pentobarbital, indicating specificity for ethanol. FGF21 mediated its anti-intoxicant effects by directly activating noradrenergic neurons in the locus coeruleus region in the brain, which regulates arousal and alertness. Taken together, the results suggest that the FGF21 liver-brain pathway evolved to protect against ethanol-induced intoxication. According to the authors, this pathway may modulate a variety of cognitive and emotional functions to enhance survival under stressful conditions.

Yet it remains to be determined whether activation of the noradrenergic system contributes to FGF21’s other effects, including those on metabolism and ethanol and sweet preference. Although both FGF21 and noradrenergic nervous system activity are induced by ethanol in humans, additional studies will also be required to determine whether FGF21’s anti-intoxicant activity translates to humans.

“Our studies reveal that the brain is the major site of action for FGF21’s effects,” Mangelsdorf says. “We are now exploring in greater depth the neuronal pathways by which FGF21 exerts its sobering effect.”

###

This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health, the Robert A. Welch Foundation, and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Information about potential conflicts of interest can be found in the paper text.

Cell Metabolism, Choi et al. “FGF21 counteracts alcohol intoxication by activating the noradrenergic nervous system” https://www.cell.com/cell-metabolism/fulltext/S1550-4131(23)00041-4

Cell Metabolism (@Cell_Metabolism), published by Cell Press, is a monthly journal that publishes reports of novel results in metabolic biology, from molecular and cellular biology to translational studies. The journal aims to highlight work addressing the molecular mechanisms underlying physiology and homeostasis in health and disease. Visit http://www.cell.com/cell-metabolism. To receive Cell Press media alerts, contact press@cell.com.

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JOURNAL

Cell Metabolism

DOI

10.1016/j.cmet.2023.02.005 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Animals

ARTICLE TITLE

FGF21 Counteracts Alcohol Intoxication by Activating the Noradrenergic Nervous System

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

7-Mar-2023

 

Faster and cheaper ethanol-to-jet-fuel on the horizon

by Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Robert Dagle holds a vial of fuel created from biomass conversion. Credit: Andrea Starr |Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

A patented process for converting alcohol sourced from renewable or industrial waste gasses into jet or diesel fuel is being scaled up at the U.S. Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory with the help of partners at Oregon State University and the carbon-recycling experts at LanzaTech.

Two key technologies power the energy-efficient fuel production units.

A single-step chemical conversion streamlines what is currently a multi-step process. The new PNNL-patented catalyst converts biofuel (ethanol) directly into a versatile "platform" chemical called n-butene. A microchannel reactor design further reduces costs while delivering a scalable modular processing system.

The new process would provide a more efficient route for converting renewable and waste-derived ethanol to useful chemicals. Currently, n-butene is produced from fossil-based feedstocks using the energy-intensive cracking—or breaking down—of large molecules. The new technology reduces emissions of carbon dioxide by using renewable or recycled carbon feedstocks. Using sustainably derived n-butene as a starting point, existing processes can further refine the chemical for multiple commercial uses, including diesel and jet fuels, and industrial lubricants.

"Biomass is a challenging source of renewable energy because of its high cost. Additionally, the scale of biomass drives the need for smaller, distributed processing plants," said Vanessa Dagle, co-primary investigator of the initial research study, which was published in the journal ACS Catalysis. "We have reduced the complexity and improved efficiency of the process, while simultaneously reducing capital costs. Once modular, scaled processing has been demonstrated, this approach offers a realistic option for localized, distributed energy production."

Micro-to-macro jet fuel

In a leap toward commercialization, PNNL is partnering with long-time collaborators at Oregon State University to integrate the patented chemical conversion process into microchannel reactors built using newly developed 3D printing technology. Also called additive manufacturing, 3D printing allows the research team to create a pleated honeycomb of mini-reactors that greatly increase the effective surface-area-to-volume ratio available for the reaction.

Microchannel mini-reactors greatly increase the efficiency of biofuel chemical conversion. Credit: Oregon State University

"The ability to use new multi-material additive manufacturing technologies to combine the manufacturing of microchannels with high-surface-area catalyst supports in one process step, has the potential to significantly reduce the costs of these reactors," says OSU lead researcher Brian Paul. "We are excited to be partners with PNNL and LanzaTech in this endeavor."                                                                                                                          

"Due to recent advances in microchannel manufacturing methods and associated cost reductions, we believe the time is right to adapt this technology toward new commercial bioconversion applications," said Robert Dagle, co-primary investigator of the research.

The microchannel technology would allow commercial-scale bioreactors to be built near agricultural centers where most biomass is produced. One of the biggest impediments to using biomass for fuel is the need to transport it long distances to large, centralized production plants.

"The modular design reduces the amount of time and risk necessary to deploy a reactor," said Robert Dagle. "Modules could be added over time as demand grows. We call this scale up by numbering up."

The one-fourth commercial-scale test reactor will be produced by 3D printing using methods developed in partnership with OSU and will be operated on the Richland, Wash. campus of PNNL.

Once the test reactor is completed, PNNL commercial partner LanzaTech will supply ethanol to feed the process. LanzaTech's patented process converts carbon-rich wastes and residues produced by industries, such as steel manufacturing, oil refining and chemical production, as well as gasses generated by gasification of forestry and agricultural residues and municipal waste into ethanol.

The test reactor will consume ethanol equivalent to up to one-half dry ton biomass per day. LanzaTech has already scaled up the first generation of PNNL technology for jet fuel production from ethanol and formed a new company, LanzaJet, to commercialize LanzaJet Alcohol-to-Jet. The current project represents the next step in streamlining that process while providing additional product streams from n-butene.

"PNNL has been a strong partner in developing ethanol-to-jet technology that LanzaTech spin-off company, LanzaJet, is employing in multiple plants under development," said Jennifer Holmgren, LanzaTech CEO. "Ethanol can come from a variety of sustainable sources and as such is an increasingly important raw material for sustainable aviation fuel. This project shows great promise for alternate reactor technology which could have benefits for this key pathway to decarbonization of the aviation sector."

Watch how a PNNL-patented catalyst, combined with a unique microchannel reactor, can convert ethanol to a useful chemical with multiple commercial uses, including jet fuel. Credit: Eric Francavilla; Animation by Mike Perkins | Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

A tunable process

Since their early experiments, the team has continued perfecting the process. When ethanol is passed over a solid silver-zirconia-based catalyst supported on a silica, it performs the essential chemical reactions that convert ethanol to either n-butene or, with some modifications to the reaction conditions, butadiene.

But even more importantly, after prolonged-duration studies, the catalyst remains stable. In a follow-up study published in ChemCatChem, the research team showed that if the catalyst loses activity, it can be regenerated by a simple procedure to remove coke―a hard carbon-based coating that can build up over time. An even more efficient, updated catalyst formulation will be used for scale-up.

"We discovered the concept for this catalyzed system that is highly active, selective, and stable," said Vanessa Dagle. "By adjusting the pressure and other variables, we can also tune the system to generate either butadiene, a building block for synthetic plastic or rubber or an n-butene, which is suitable for making jet fuels or products such as synthetic lubricant. Since our initial discovery, other research institutions have also begun exploring this new process." 

PNNL technology clears way for ethanol-derived jet fuel

More information: Vanessa Lebarbier Dagle et al, Single-Step Conversion of Ethanol to n-Butene over Ag-ZrO2/SiO2 Catalysts, ACS Catalysis (2020). DOI: 10.1021/acscatal.0c02235

Fan Lin et al, Understanding the Deactivation of Ag−ZrO 2 /SiO 2 Catalysts for the Single‐step Conversion of Ethanol to Butenes, ChemCatChem (2020). DOI: 10.1002/cctc.202001488

Journal information: ACS Catalysis 

Provided by Pacific Northwest National Laboratory 

Ethanol plants seek rule changes to resupply hand sanitizer

By DAVID PITT March 26, 2020

FILE— In this Jan. 28, 2014 file photo a jar of ethanol fuel sits on display during the Iowa Renewable Fuels Association meeting in Altoona, Iowa. As hospitals and nursing homes run out of hand sanitizer to fight off the coronavirus, struggling ethanol producers are eager to help. They could provide alcohol to make millions of gallons of the germ-killing sanitizer, but the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has put up a roadblock, frustrating both the health care and ethanol industries with its inflexible regulations during a national health care crisis. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall, file)

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — As hospitals and nursing homes desperately search for hand sanitizer amid the coronavirus outbreak, federal regulators are preventing ethanol producers from providing millions of gallons of alcohol that could be transformed into the germ-killing mixture.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s roadblock has been frustrating the health care and ethanol industries, which have been calling for a relaxed regulation to deal with the public health care emergency.

“Hand sanitizer is a big part of our lives,” said Eric Barber, CEO of Mary Lanning Healthcare, a hospital in Hastings, Nebraska. “We can’t get any. We order it and it’s just not available.”

The problem for the ethanol industry is that most plants make food-grade ethanol, one step below the highest pharmaceutical grade. But since the plants aren’t certified to comply with stringent production standards designed to protect quality of medicines, food ingredients and dietary supplements, the FDA doesn’t want the alcohol used for a product to be applied to the skin.
FILE - In this Jan. 6, 2015 file photo steam blows over the Green Plains ethanol plant in Shenandoah, Iowa. As hospitals and nursing homes run out of hand sanitizer to fight off the coronavirus, struggling ethanol producers are eager to help. They could provide alcohol to make millions of gallons of the germ-killing sanitizer, but the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has put up a roadblock, frustrating both the health care and ethanol industries with its inflexible regulations during a national health care crisis. (AP Photo/Nati Harnik, file)

In addition, the alcohol is not denatured or mixed with a bitter additive to make it undrinkable. The FDA insists this step is “critical” because of cases of poisoning, sometimes fatal, among young children who have accidentally ingested hand sanitizers.

An FDA spokesman said Thursday that regulators have already seen a rise in poisonings linked to hand sanitizers in recent weeks, “heightening this public concern.”

The FDA is also skeptical of industry claims that undenatured sanitizers could be distributed in a way that would keep them away from children.

“It is unclear what, if any, measure could be instituted to ensure that the product does not make its way into consumer hands, where children could have access,” FDA’s Jeremy Kahn said in an emailed statement.

Facing a nationwide shortage, Barber said the FDA should temporarily relax regulations to allow alternative production.

“You’re talking about alcohol. Does it matter if it’s fuel grade or whatever the stuff is they’re trying to price gouge now? I think its common sense,” he said.

The American Hospital Association encouraged flexibility to help protect patients and caregivers, without directly weighing in on the sanitizer dispute.

“We may need to consider a range of possible solutions that were not on the table before the pandemic,” said Nancy Foster, a vice president with the group, in an emailed statement to the AP.


The Consumer Brands Association, formerly the Grocery Manufacturers Association, has had conversations with the FDA to push the agency to reconsider its guidelines. The group, which represents branded food, consumer products and beverage companies, said that hand sanitizer supplies are running so low that its members have had to ration it out to workers in stores, distribution centers and manufacturing plants.

“We need a temporary solution,” said Mike Gruber, vice president of regulatory and technical affairs at the trade association. “This goes toward ensuring basic food safety practices.”

Distillers that produce vodka, whisky and other alcoholic drinks have been given some regulatory waivers by the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau allowing them to produce hand sanitizer. Many have done that, but they produce much smaller volumes of alcohol than an ethanol plant could produce. They also receive a benefit in the Senate-passed stimulus bill.

The Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, which represents dozens of large and small distillers, applauded Congress for easing taxes on distillers who make hand sanitizer.

Under the stimulus package passed late Wednesday, distillers don’t have to pay federal excise taxes on alcohol used for hand sanitizer through Jan. 1, 2021.

“Hundreds of U.S. distillers are stepping up to produce hand sanitizer and they should not be hit with a huge tax bill for producing this much-needed item, especially at a time when so many of them are struggling,” said Chris Swonger, the group’s president and CEO.

But the council said it’s urging the FDA to update its guidance and let distillers use undenatured alcohol for hand sanitizer. The stimulus bill requires distillers to follow the FDA’s guidance if they want to receive the tax breaks.

The FDA has waived dozens of regulations in recent weeks to boost production of key medical supplies, including coronavirus tests, ventilators, gloves and hand sanitizers.

Under the latest FDA guidelines, regulators maintain standards for alcohol, requiring new producers to use alcohol that meets federal or international standards for use in either drugs or food products.

The regulatory hurdles are especially frustrating for Midwest ethanol producers who are facing plunging fuel demand and a petroleum fight between Saudi Arabia and Russia that caused prices to plummet. The factors are forcing more plants to curtail production and close.

For ethanol producers relaxed rules, including a requirement of the hard-to-acquire denaturant, would allow them to step in an help in a national emergency.

“If we could get the FDA to say yes you can use the beverage grade and for the duration of this emergency at least for some point in time here for the next two weeks you can waive the denaturant we would literally have millions of gallons of hand sanitizer available within a matter of days,” said Monte Shaw, CEO of Iowa Renewable Fuels Association, an ethanol trade group. “Every one of our plants has gotten contacted by people who want this stuff and we can’t send it to them.”

Andrew Vrbas owner of Pacha Soap, a boutique soap shop in Hastings, Nebraska, had just finished renovating a 100,000-square-foot former bread factory as a project to boost the community. Now, he’s preparing to set up hand sanitizer production there to supply to hospitals. He’s received calls from hospitals in Nebraska, Florida and New York City seeking hand sanitizer.

“We are literally three miles from a plant that has as much ethanol as you could imagine,” he said. “We’re sitting on millions of gallons of alcohol. If we could rally the federal government to say look if you just let us work with local ethanol producers we have the expertise, we have the ability to provide hand sanitizer to hospitals not only in Nebraska but all across the country that are just reaching out through my network saying if you could send us hand sanitizer, we’re out.”

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Retail Writer Anne D’Innocenzio contributed from New York City, Health Writer Matthew Perrone from Washington and Auto Writer Dee-Ann Durbin from Ann Arbor, Michigan.