AN ENERGY-WATER-FOOD (EWF) NEXUS AND POLYGENERATION APPROACH TO DECENTRALISE FOOD PRODUCTION SYSTEMS – THE CASE OF DAIRY PRODUCTION

Abstract

The rising global population, increasing per capita energy, water, and food (EWF) demands, and climate change present a severe threat to food security for future generations, both locally and globally. On the other hand, currently, the food production systems are environmentally detrimental because of their inefficient systems for resources’ management, large quantities of waste output, and unsustainable approaches to fulfil their energy and water demands. In addition, food production systems are large consumers of energy and water and, as such, undermines energy and water security. In this context, this study presents a three-dimensional solution, which is based on the concept of polygeneration (for efficient utilisation of the harnessed energy), integration of renewable energies (to replace the conventional fossil fuels) and circular economy (for waste reduction by minimising linear flows of energy and materials through the system). With such an integrated concept for dairy farms, it is expected that the dairy farms can be made self-sufficient and operated stably in decentralised locations in an environmentally benign manner, thereby ensuring local and global dairy food security. With this background, four different systems are presented in this study which are investigated thermodynamically, and their resilience against the variations in inputs and environmental conditions have been assessed. These analyses demonstrated encouraging results and illustrated that the systems can fulfil the dairy farm’s needs in a stable and environmentally friendly manner. Furthermore, the parametric analysis concerning environmental conditions not only demonstrates that the systems can perform stably in varying environmental conditions but also, contrary to other systems, indicates that the systems favour hotter and more humid climates.

Date of Award	2021
Original language	American English
Awarding Institution	HBKU College of Science and Engineering