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Abstract: Five groups of NMRI mice were fed ethanol or sucrose in a nutritionally adequate liquid diet for 9 days. The dietary fat consisted of olive oil with the fatty acid composition 18:1 77%, 18:2 10%, 18:0 and 16:0 12%. The ethanol treated groups received 5% w/v ethanol (E) or isocaloric sucrose (S). Two groups (S‐ and E‐) received the diet without supplement. In two groups (S+ and E +) 7% of the fat was exchanged for arachidonic acid (20:4). In a fifth group (IE +) treated with ethanol and arachidonic acid the diet also contained indomethacin (10 mg/1). The mean intake of ethanol was about 20 g/kg/day. After 9 days animals were killed and liver lipids analyzed after Folch extraction. The post mortem accumulation of prostaglandin E2 in the kidney was measured by GC‐MS. Dietary 20:4 was found to protect mice against fatty liver caused both by a high fat diet alone and in combination with ethanol. The liver triglycerides were 30.7 + 4.3 (S ‐), 46.1+6.9 (E ‐), 6.8 + 0.4 (S +) and 19.4 ±1.8 (E +). Prostaglandin levels in the kidney were depressed by ethanol treatment. Indomethacin gave variable degrees of PG synthesis inhibition. The degree of liver triglyceride accumulation in the IE+ group was inversely propotional to the degree of PG synthesis. The data suggest a role for liver 20:4 cyclooxyganase metabolites in fatty liver caused by high fat diets and ethanol.

The current and future costs of willow short rotation coppice production in Sweden are analysed, considering all relevant cost factors explicitly. The future production costs are estimated considering effects of coppice area expansion and learning. The current and future costs of land and of risk premiums are subsequently estimated. Subsidies for farmers are not considered. If the area of willow cultivation were to expand enough to generate economies of scale, the production cost could be cut by about 10% compared to the current level. When learning effects are also considered, the total cost reduction potential is about 35%. Two major cost components (fertilization and road transport) are roughly stable while two other major cost components (establishment and harvest) have larger prospects for cost reduction, primarily due to potential for learning. Land costs and risk premiums vary and are uncertain, but both are estimated to be potentially significant compared to other cost components. Requirements of risk premiums may become lower as a consequence of area expansion and learning. Land costs are subject to many factors that are inherently uncertain, not the least future food prices. Efficient policies promoting an expansion of willow cultivation are discussed.

Abstract High titer ethanol production from rice straw using Mucor indicus fungus was investigated through the solid-state simultaneous saccharification and fermentation (SSSF) process. The straw was pretreated with 0.5 M sodium carbonate solution for 3, 5, and 10 h to improve the efficiency of the process. Effects of the pretreatment on the composition, structural morphology, cellulose crystallinity, swelling capacity, and buffering capacity of the straw were studied. Moreover, the effects of SSSF reaction time, enzyme loading, and solid loading on glucose and ethanol production were investigated. Additionally, the nutritional value of the residue from the SSSF process, as an animal feedstock, was determined in terms of lipid and protein contents. The highest total sugar concentration was 89.2 g/L, obtained from the straw pretreated for 10 h after hydrolysis with 10 FPU/g straw at 15% (w/w) solid loading. Total sugars concentration was not significantly improved by increasing the pretreatment time at low enzyme loadings, whereas it was significantly improved at high enzyme loadings. The highest ethanol concentration and SSSF yield were 99.4 g/L and 89.5% (71.8% based on the raw material), achieved from the straw pretreated for 10 h through the 72-h SSSF at 30% and 15% solid loading, respectively, using 20 FPU/g straw. The low enzyme loadings of 2.5 and 5 FPU/g straw yielded ethanol with concentrations as high as 66.3 and 90.9 g/L, respectively, after 120-h fermentation at 30% solid loading from the straw pretreated for 5 h.

Abstract Bioenergy is recognized as the most important renewable energy source in Poland in several national policy documents. This has spurred an in increasing interest in energy crops, particularly willow, due to the large areas of arable land in Poland. However, in order for willow to be adopted by farmers, this crop must be perceived to be at least as profitable as cereal crops, such as wheat and barley, which compete for the same land. The objective of this study was to calculate the economics of growing willow on relatively large farms from a farmer's perspective in Poland. An additional objective was to relate the viability of growing willow to that of growing wheat and barley. Our calculations show that growing willow can indeed be an economically viable alternative to wheat and barley. At the current Polish price of wood chips (about 33 PLN/MWh or 7.5 €/MWh), the viability of willow is similar to that of barley given our assumptions on yields, etc. Wheat is the most viable crop of the three crops studied. Willow, however, is more profitable than both wheat and barley assuming a wood chip price of 50 PLN/MWh (11 €/MWh), which better represents the price in Europe as a whole. Despite good viability, willow is unlikely to be adopted by a great number of farmers without active support mechanisms and long-term stability of the status of energy crops in the Polish and the EU common agricultural policy.

Abstract Autumn-harvested cereal straw and spring-harvested reed canary grass (Phalaris arundinacea L.) are renewable energy sources with similar material characteristics. The fuels can be harvested and handled with the same machines, stored in the same stores, and fired with the same equipment. Thus, there is a possibility to reduce costs and increase supply reliability at many locations by using reed canary grass (RCG) as a complementary fuel in straw-fired district heating plants. The objective of this study was to find appropriate machinery combinations, straw/RCG proportions and storage capacities in order to reduce the total costs of the fuel system. The tool for the analyses was a modified dynamic simulation model for straw handling called SHAM (Straw HAndling Model). To include handling of RCG, SHAM was extended with submodules for calculation of daily fuel use, soil moisture contents and early crop growth. The model was applied to a fictitious heating plant in Enkoping in central Sweden as a case study. The simulations showed that the total costs can be lowered by using both straw and RCG in suitable proportions instead of solely using straw, although the primary fuel cost for RCG is more than three times higher per GJ than for straw. The choice of reserve base load fuel had a significant impact on the results, particularly when the RCG proportion was small, because the consumption of the reserve fuel became proportionally higher in such cases.

In this review article, discuss the many ways utilized by the dairy sector to treat pollutants, emphasizing their influence on the quality and efficiency with which contamination is removed. It focuses on biotechnology possibilities for valorizing dairy waste in particular. The findings revealed that dairy waste may be treated using physicochemical, biological, and biotechnological techniques. Notably, this article highlighted the possibility of dairy waste being used as a feedstock not only for the generation of biogas, bioethanol, biohydrogen, microbial fuel cells, lactic acid, and fumaric acid via microbial technology but also for the production of biooil and biochar by pyrolysis. In addition, this article critically evaluates the many treatment techniques available for recovering energy and materials from dairy waste, their combinations, and implementation prospects. Valorization of dairy waste streams presents an opportunity to extend the dairy industry's presence in the fermented functional beverage sector.

Perennial energy crop development is just starting in Poland and there are great expectations on this sector to make a substantial contribution to the achievement of renewable energy targets defined in the European Union (EU) directive 28/2009/EC. Insights into the economics of energy crop production may lead to a better understanding of the dynamics of developments in the field. This work addresses current and future economics of willow, Miscanthus and triticale (a whole crop) production for energy use in Poland. The economics of energy crops is set next to that of common cereal production for grain. Potential cost reductions of energy crops in the future are investigated with regard to the hypothetical impact of scale effect, as well as the combined effect of scale and technology developments. Results indicate that for the assumed biomass prices applied, willow is profitable while Miscanthus and triticale generate loss. The volatility of cereal market prices is found to significantly affect the competitiveness of energy crops compared to grain production. Willow and Miscanthus are produced with lower costs compared to triticale. Furthermore, the economics of perennials are less susceptible to changes in agricultural inputs prices compared to annual crops. For the first farmers to cultivate energy crops, the costs are high, however, there are large opportunities for cost reduction due to the economics of scale and technology developments. With the expected increase in biomass market demand and biomass prices, energy crops should be profitably produced in the future. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. (Less)

The performance of an anaerobic digestion process is much dependent on the type and the composition of the material to be digested. The effects on the degradation process of co-digesting different types of waste were examined in two laboratory-scale studies. In the first investigation, sewage sludge was co-digested with industrial waste from potato processing. The co-digestion resulted in a low buffered system and when the fraction of starch-rich waste was increased, the result was a more sensitive process, with process overload occurring at a lower organic loading rate (OLR). In the second investigation, pig manure, slaughterhouse waste, vegetable waste and various kinds of industrial waste were digested. This resulted in a highly buffered system as the manure contributed to high amounts of ammonia. However, it is important to note that ammonia might be toxic to the micro-organisms. Although the conversion of volatile fatty acids was incomplete the processes worked well with high gas yields, 0.8-1.0 m3 kg(-1) VS.

The associations between generalized obesity measured as body mass index (BMI), or adipose tissue distribution, measured as the waist/hip circumference ratio (WHR), on one hand, and a number of socioeconomic, somatic as well as psychologic and mental health variables on the other, were analysed in a population study of women (1462 participants, aged 38-60 years, participation rate 90.1%). The anthropometric measurements were adjusted for their influence on each other. BMI, but not WHR, was negatively associated with socioeconomic status and education. Increased WHR correlated to a number of somatic diseases from different organ systems, including diabetes mellitus, infectious respiratory and abdominal diseases. Even more striking were strong correlations to a number of variables indicating accident proneness as well as mental disorder, and increased use of antidepressants and tranquilizers. BMI and WHR were also associated to different personality profiles. Furthermore, the use of alcohol and smoking were positively correlated to the WHR. In contrast, most of these associations were not seen with the BMI--sometimes even negative correlations were found. Exceptions were, however, varicose veins, joint problems and surgery for gall bladder disease, which were positively correlated to BMI only. Blood pressure, plasma triglycerides and uric acid were positively correlated to both BMI and the WHR, plasma cholesterol, however, only to the WHR. Obesity (high BMI) and abdominal adipose tissue distribution (high WHR) clearly show differences in their associations to various health variables. It is hypothesized that an arousal syndrome might be a contributing factor to cause symptoms of psychological maladjustment, including psychosomatic disease. Hypothetically, in parallel, an accumulation of depot fat in the abdominal depot, might follow as a consequence of neuroendocrine dysregulation of endocrine secretions.