Citation:

Martín-Hernández, E., Y. Hu, V. Zavala, M. Martín, AND Gerardo J. Ruiz-Mercado. Analysis of incentive policies for phosphorus recovery at livestock facilities in the Great Lakes area. Resources, Conservation and Recycling. Elsevier Science BV, Amsterdam, Netherlands, 177:105973, (2022). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resconrec.2021.105973

Impact/Purpose:

Currently, intensive livestock farming produces most of the meat and dairy products worldwide, and their demand expects to double by the year 2050 compared to 2007. To meet this increasing demand for developing intensive farming practices results in concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs). However, the livestock industry needs large amounts of water, represents 14.5% of the anthropogenic-based greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and is a source of nutrient releases that lead to high phosphorus concentrations in soil and waterbodies. Phosphorus releases due to improper organic waste management from these facilities contribute to the eutrophication of fresh and marine waters, harmful algal blooms (HABs), toxins release, and hypoxia due to algae biomass decomposition. This work applies a computational framework to perform a systematic design and analysis of incentive schemes for the techno-economic analysis of nutrient and energy recovery technologies for 2,217 livestock facilities across the Great Lakes area (Minnesota, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan). Suitable technologies are designed and evaluated for each studied CAFO among the state-of-the-art processes for organic waste management. The effect of different incentive policies on the economic performance of nutrient management technologies is studied considering the environmental vulnerability to nutrient pollution: trophic state index (TSI), the techno-ecological synergy (TES) metric, and phosphorus legacy in soils. The results show how the framework determines optimal incentive policies for sustainable nutrient management systems as a function of CAFOs size, animal type, and geospatial nutrient pollution conditions. Also, allocating limited monetary resources using a Nash scheme determines the break-even point for efficiently distributing economic resources based on incentives availability. The findings reveal that recovering phosphorus is more economically feasible in the largest CAFOs due to the economies of scale. Deploying phosphorus recovery processes is self-profitable through struvite production and sales only for the largest P recovery processes. These facilities represent less than 5 % of the total CAFOs in all five States. However, the application of P credits increases the fraction of profitable processes around 100% in States with large-size CAFOs (Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin); and up to 80% for the states with medium-size CAFOs (Indiana and Pennsylvania). Integrating phosphorus recovery technologies, anaerobic digestion, and biogas upgrading processes do not result in economic benefits unless incentives for phosphorus recovery are considered. Unfortunately, revenues from electricity sales cannot cover the investment and operating cost of these integrated processes, given current product market values. Thus, stakeholders will be able to design more efficient time-location nutrient source management actions and programs for reducing nutrient pollution and subsequent effects on watersheds and waterbodies. This framework has the potential to be a key asset for state and regional partners in designing and evaluating regional incentive policies for P recovery systems to achieve economic neutrality. Additionally, with the fair distribution of incentives, OW stakeholders can determine the break-even point for allocating economic resources based on the availability of such incentives and geospatial nutrient pollution conditions.

Description:

Livestock operations have been highly intensified over the last decades, resulting in the advent of large concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs). Intensification decreases production costs but also leads to substantial environmental impacts. Specifically, nutrient runoff from livestock waste results in eutrophication, harmful algal blooms, and hypoxia. The implementation of nutrient recovery systems in CAFOs can abate nutrient releases and negative ecosystem responses, although they might negatively affect the economic performance of CAFOs. We design and analyze potential incentive policies for the deployment of phosphorus recovery technologies at CAFOs considering the geospatial vulnerability to nutrient pollution. The case study demonstration consists of 2217 CAFOs in the U.S. Great Lakes area. The results reveal that phosphorus recovery is more economically viable in the largest CAFOs due to economies of scale, although they also represent the largest eutrophication threats. For small and medium-scale CAFOs, phosphorus credits progressively improve the profitability of nutrient management systems. 

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