Consequential versus attributional life cycle optimization of poultry manure management technologies in a food-energy-water-waste nexus

Abstract

To model the environmental and economic tradeoffs of managing poultry manure wastes in a food-energy-water-waste nexus, this work builds a framework to conduct a combined life cycle and techno-economic optimization and a spatial analysis of poultry manure management technologies. To align with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals 6: Clean Water and Sanitation and 13: Climate Action by mitigating the massive water and climate impacts induced by the common practice of fertilizer crops using direct land application of poultry manure, the framework minimizes freshwater eutrophication (FE) impact and climate change impact (GWP). To account for the circular economy, the net present value (NPV) is maximized to measure the economic feasibility of implementing alternative management pathways. A multi-objective mixed-integer non-linear programming framework accounts for the selection of direct land application, and waste to energy technologies, spatial variation in manure supply, facility sizing, and the products’ consumption and end-of-life. This optimization framework is evaluated for a case study in New York state. Under an attributional life cycle optimization, anaerobic digestion minimizes FE with an impact of 0.002 kg P-eq/ton manure, while using a consequential life cycle optimization, hydrothermal carbonization minimizes FE with an impact of −0.96 kg P-eq/ton manure. For both life cycle methodologies, pyrolysis with land application of biochar minimizes GWP. At the attributional life cycle assessment tradeoff point for GWP and NPV, minimum carbon credits of US$33/ton CO2-eq are necessary for a pyrolysis plant to have a positive NPV, implying that harnessing economies of scale or robust carbon accounting is necessary for the widespread adoption of pyrolysis as a poultry manure management technology.