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The food-energy-water nexusand challenges in decision making
Aidong Yang and Till WeidnerDepartment of Engineering Science
University of Oxford
Product Development Symposium | DTU | 10 November 2017 1
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Outline
• The food, energy and water (FEW) challenges
• Managing the FEW nexus
• modelling and assessment
• integrated design
• Reflections: product and system innovation
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Material essentials for survival and flourish
Nutrition and hydration…
…heat and light…
…fuel and electricity
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10+ years into 21st century: the world is not doing well with FEW…
Food (UNICEF 2016)
Energy(UN SDG report 2014)
Water (WHO 2011)
Life-threatening consequences
• 1 in 5 people lack access to modern electricity
• 2.7 billion people or 40% rely on wood, coal, charcoal or animal waste for cooking and heating
• About 2 billion people suffer from micronutrient malnutrition
• Nearly 800 million people suffer from calorie deficiency
• 2.5 billion people lack access to sanitation facilities
• 768 million people rely on unsafe drinking water
• 2.6 million child deaths per year• 11% of global burden of disease
• 1.5 million deaths related to indoor pollution
• 1.5 million deaths per year• 9.1% of global burden of
disease
30% of soil degraded globally2
15-35% of irrigation withdrawals exceed
supply rates3
20% of world’s aquifers over-
exploited1
1 UNESCO 2012/20142 IEA, 20123 Global Land Outlook, 2017
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…and the future is daunting
0
1000
2000
3000
4000
5000
6000
7000
2010 2030
Agriculture
Industry
Municipaland Domestic
Future freshwater needs2
Tera litre/year
0
1
2
3
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9
2010 2030
Globalpopulation
Populationliving undersevere waterstress
World population1
Billions
0
2
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2010 2030
Non-OECD
OECD
Global energy demand3
Billion toe/year
• Changing diet• Food demand expected to
double
1. OECD Publishing 20082. 2030 Water Resources Group, 20093. BP Energy Outlook, 2013
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FEW to climate change: both a causer and a victim
* EPA reporting, 2017
25%
24%
10%
14%
21%
6%
Electricity and Heat Production
Agirculture, Forestry and Other Land Use
Other Energy
Transportation
Industry
Buildings
Global GHG emissions by economic sector*
Vulnerability to climate change
Combined Food, Energy, Water
theguardian
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FEW in a nexus
Ecosystem
• Energy used for desalination, pumping and waste water treatment
• Water used for energy generation (indirect: cooling and
process water, direct: hydro and tidal energy)
• Impact on water quality (fertilizer run-off)
• Water withdrawals for agriculture (irrigation, process water)
Rainfallground water rivers
Feedstock, sources
Arable land , forestry, livestock
• Fuel (harvest, tillage, transport, fertilizer production) and electricity (pumping, processing)
7
70%1
15%1
30%2
1 UNESCO 2012/20142 IEA, 2012
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Complexity of managing the FEW nexus
Competition between system objectives
Competition between sectors• Land use (food vs. fuel) • Hydropower (upstream) vs. irrigation (downstream)• …
Productivity
Sustainability
Difficulty in change management• Stakeholder awareness and
interests• Socioeconomic factors• Changing political landscape
Resilience
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A brief history of integrated FEW studies
1940s onwards: considerations on resources and the environment*• 1949: United Nations Scientific Conference for the Conservation and Utilization of Resources• 1960s – 1970s: Silent Spring/Rachel Carson; Ecology/Odum; The Tragedy of the Commons/Garrett
Hardin; The limits to Growth/Club of Rome• 1987: Our Common Future (Brundtland Report)• 2000: Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)
2009 John Beddington: “perfect storm”2011 Bonn conference: “The Water, Energy and Food Security Nexus – Solutions for the
Green Economy”2014 UK’s ESRC “The Nexus Network”2015 UK’s EPSRC nexus sandpit (Vaccinating the Nexus; WEFWEBs; Stepping Up); The
Local Nexus Network2016 UK’s Centre for the Evaluation of Complexity Across the Nexus (CECAN)2016 US NSF/USDA programme of Innovations at the Nexus of Food, Energy and Water
Systems (INFEWS)
*Dennis Wichelns, 2017
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Outline
• The food, energy and water (FEW) challenges
• Managing the FEW nexus
• modelling and assessment
• integrated design
• Reflections: product and system innovation
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Emerging tools for nexus modelling and assessment
Tool Modelling approach Scale Scope
GLOBIOM Dynamic multiregional
partial equilibrium
model
Global FEW nexus and other
interacting systems such
as ecosystems
WEF Nexus Tool 2.0 Input-output National FEW nexus components
MuSIASEM Input-output, nested
hierarchical view of the
economy
Aggregated to national
or sub-national level
WEF nexus components,
land, economy, human
capital and ecosystems
CLEWS Integrates detailed
models from different
tools
Regional Climate, Land, Energy and
Water
Quantitative assessment framework Input-output based on
Lontief matrices
National FEW nexus components
DEA Data Envelopment
Analysis Model
Local (city level) FEW nexus components
PRIMA Integrates regional
climate, hydrology, agri-
culture and land use,
socioeconomics and
energy systems sector
models
Regional FEW components,
economy, land use
NexSym System dynamics Local FEW components, local
ecosystems,
consumption
General-purpose LCA tools Resource and impact
accounting
Supply chain Product life cycles
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NexSym: A techno-ecological simulator for local FEW systems
12E. Martinez-Hernandez, M. Leach, A. Yang, 2017, Understanding water-energy-food and ecosystem interactions using the nexus simulation tool NexSym, Applied
Energy, 206, 1009-1021.
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NexSym: A techno-ecological simulator for local FEW systems
Inter-sectoral flows
60,0
60,2
60,4
60,6
60,8
61,0
61,2
0
1000
2000
3000
4000
5000
6000
7000
0 20 40 60
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ter
leve
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Bio
ma
ss
Heather biomass in ecosystem (kg/ha)
Water level (m above sea level)
States
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10000
15000
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Millio
ns
Water from aquifer (m3/y)
CO2 capture Heathland (t/y)
Services
Ecosystem
Nutrients distribution
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Life-cycle assessment of food products: confectionaries
14
Miah, J.H. et al. 2017, Environmental management of confectionery products: Impacts and improvement strategies. Submitted to: Journal of Cleaner Production.
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GH
G (
kg C
O2
-eq
per
un
it)
Wat
er c
on
sum
pti
on
(m
3 p
er u
nit
)
Life-cycle assessment of food products: confectionaries
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Life-cycle assessment of food products: confectionaries
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ICI’s Pruteen: M methylotrophus
growing on methanol
ICI’s Pruteen process (Westlake 1986)
Rank Hovis McDougall (RHM)
Group’s Quorn: F Venenatum A3/5
growing on starch
UniBio’s UniProtein: methylotrophic
bacteria growing on natural gas
Life-cycle assessment of food products:proteins from biotechnology
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Alternative protein product for animal feed
Alt. Product Alt. Product
Life-cycle assessment of food products:proteins from biotechnology
18Nicholas Cooper, 2015. Food without agriculture. Research project report, Dept. Eng. Sci., Uni. Oxford.
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Alternative protein product for human consumption
Alt. Product Alt. Product
Alt. Product Chicken
Life-cycle assessment of food products:proteins from biotechnology
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Outline
• The food, energy and water (FEW) challenges
• Managing the FEW nexus
• modelling and assessment
• integrated design
• Reflections: product and system innovation
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Design of integrated local FEW systems
Design objective: minimising overall resource consumption for meeting local
demands, measured by cumulative exergy consumption
availability of local
and external
resources
demands by a
local
population
• What to produce locally, what to import?
• How to produce locally?
21
Leung et al.,(2017). Insight-based approach for the design of integrated local food-energy-water systems. Environmental Science & Technology, 51 (15), pp 8643–8653.
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A hierarchical and iterative approach
Ecological
Agricultural
Industrial
Resource cascading
Integration (inter-subsystem
resource cascading use)
Synthesis (“basic” design)
Design of
Subsys.1
Design of
Subsys. 2
Design of
Subsystem 3
Leung et al.,(2017). Insight-based approach for the design of integrated local food-energy-water systems. Environmental Science & Technology, 51 (15), pp 8643–8653.
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Design decisions and “resource gain”
Resource gain: quantifying resource benefit of decision options
𝑅𝐺 = 𝐶𝐸𝑥𝐶𝑎𝑙𝑡 − 𝐶𝐸𝑥𝐶𝑟𝑒𝑓
Principle: Adopting the option with (greatest) positive resource gain!
Design decisions
At subsystem level At inter-subsystem level
• Allocation of limited
resources
• Resource cascading use
• Re-generation/recycle
vs. disposal
• Re-generation vs. re-
purposing
• Import
or produce locally?
• Selection between
alternative technical
options
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Case study – designing FEW system for an eco-town
Whitehill-Bordon, Surrey, UK
Population: 17,000
Agricultural area: 17 ha
Groundwater abstraction limit per year:
15 million tonnes
Annual demands (residential)
Clean water: 887,081 tonnes
Electricity : 90,254 GJ
Heat: 343,814 GJ
Foods (tonnes)
Bread 224
Potatoes 403
Beef 88
Pork 46
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Illustrative results of design
Sources of benefit• “Cheaper” local renewables vs.
imported conventional resources
• Local synergies• Full utilisation of residual
streams• Water/energy integration
Resource savings compared to
“conventional” system:
• Food subsystem: ~50%
• Water subsystem: ~50%
• Energy subsystem: ~100%
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Outline
• The food, energy and water (FEW) challenges
• Managing the FEW nexus
• modelling and assessment
• integrated design
• Reflections: product and system innovation
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Linking product’s impact to purpose
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ChinaBelgium
UK
France
Netherlands
Belgium
Mauritius
Factory in NE England
Switzerland
Argentina
Japan
Italy
Germany
Spain
Poland
Brazil1 product with18 ingredients from14 countries
Rethinking system’s architecture
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Managing multi-scales and multi-objectives
(e.g. local)
(e.g. regional)
(e.g. global)
29A. J. Veldhuis, A. Yang, Integrated approaches to the optimisation of regional and local food-energy-water systems. Current Opinion in Chemical Engineering 18C (2017) pp. 38-44
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Integration vs. innovation
Foodenergy
water
climate
ecosystem
pollution
urbanisation
waste
transport
…
• Integrated decisions: boundaries• “Tension” between innovation
and integration?• Nexus thinking is to make
innovation more meaningful, not more difficult!
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Summary
• Food, energy and water: basic needs, great challenges!
• Nexus means complexity, calling for integrated approaches.
• Product and systems innovation: needed for FEW security, to incorporate nexus thinking
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Acknowledgements
Contributors• Elias Martinez-Hernandez• Hans Veldhuis• Melissa Y. Leung Pah Hang• Matthew Leach• Jamal Miah• Steven Morse• Jhuma Sadhukhan• Nicholas Cooper• Yuxi Yao• The Local Nexus Network
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