Design of Food-Energy-Water-Waste Nexus Systems in New York State under COVID-19 Pandemic

This article addresses food-energy-water-waste nexus (FEWWN) optimization under the COVID-19 pandemic to alleviate the public health and environmental concerns from increasing food waste generation using waste-to-energy technologies. Food waste generation has noticeably increased during the pandemic across the globe. To alleviate the associated health and environmental concerns, food waste could be converted into electricity and heat through FEWWN systems using waste-to-energy facilities, such as anaerobic digesters and combined heat and power units in wastewater treatment plants and livestock farms. In this work, a multi-period multi-objective optimization model is proposed for the design of efficient nexus systems under various impacts of the pandemic. To illustrate the applicability of the proposed modelling framework, a case study for New York State is presented. The optimized nexus systems could potentially reduce the food waste disposal amounts by 38%. A clear trade-off between the objectives is revealed by the Pareto-optimal solutions. The minimum total cost for the FEWWN system is $27.1 million; the optimal unit processing profit is $11.9 per ton processed food waste. Spatial analyses illustrate a strong correlation between facility selections and their processing capacities. Sensitivity analysis revealed that electricity price and biogas yield are the most important factors for the economic objectives.