Journal of Cleaner Production 385 (2023) 135741

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Journal of Cleaner Production

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jclepro

Conversion of food waste to renewable energy: A techno-economic and

environmental assessment
Yunzhi Chen a, Lizzie Pinegar a, Jake Immonen a, Kody M. Powell a, b, *
a
Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Utah, 50 South Central Campus Drive, 3290 MEB, Salt Lake City, UT, 84112-9203, USA
b
Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Utah, 1495 E 100 S, Salt Lake City, UT, 84112-9203, USA

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Handling Editor: Zhen Leng Increasing quantities of food waste have become a concern due to high disposal costs in landfills and high
greenhouse gas emissions. With this increase in food waste generation, there is also an increasing demand for
Keywords: renewable natural gas to supplement traditional fossil fuel combustion and offset the impacts of climate change.
Food waste Collecting food waste from landfills and turning it into renewable natural gas using anaerobic digestion could be
Renewable natural gas
a win-win option for both food waste disposal and renewable energy production. While some literature exists on
Anaerobic digestion
the energy potential, economic feasibility, and environmental benefit of food waste disposal via anaerobic
Waste-to-energy
Economic assessment digestion, no existing study simultaneously evaluates the energy, economic and environmental effect of food
Environmental assessment waste to renewable energy via anaerobic digestion, especially on a plant and city scale. This study is focused on
the techno-economic and environmental assessment of food waste to energy via anaerobic digestion in order to
fill this gap. Four anaerobic digestion pathways are considered in this study: flare, pipeline natural gas, combined
heat and power, and combined cycle for efficient power generation. Using a city of 1 M people the results show
that renewable natural gas from food waste could supply the natural gas usage for 1.9% of residential use, 2.7%
of commercial use, 1.1% of industrial use, 167.5% of the compressed natural gas vehicle fleet, 0.7% of electric
power generation, or 2.5% of industrial high-temperature heating processes. All pathways except pipeline nat­
ural gas will have a positive net present value in the baseline scenario, and the pipeline natural gas pathway will
become economically viable with a net present value of 31 USD/t of food waste with renewable energy credits.
Lastly, all of the pathways achieve negative greenhouse gas emissions, which indicates that anaerobic digestion is
a more environmentally friendly method for the handling of food waste than landfills.

significant portion of fugitive greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from

1. Introduction
Food waste as a type of municipal solid waste (MSW) is gaining
worldwide attention. According to the EPA 2018 wasted food report,
93.4 M tons of food waste are produced yearly in the US, which amounts
to around 285.8 kg per capita (US EPA, 2020). In 2018, food waste
accounted for 21.6% of all MSW created, and food waste output has
steadily increased over the last 50 years (US EPA, 2022).
Landfills are now the most popular destination for food waste, ac­
counting for 36% of total food waste generated (US EPA, 2020). Land­
fills are more regulated since it is an unsustainable method of waste
management. The cost of a landfill is predicted to rise due to a scarcity of
acceptable landfill spaces. A further downside of food waste is that it has
the largest methane potential among MSW constituents, accounting for a
landfills (Badgett and Milbrandt, 2021). Sending food waste to landfills
is unsustainable, costly, and harmful to the planet; finding a more sus­
tainable approach to disposing of food waste is critical.
With the scarcity of fossil fuels and concerns about climate change,
renewable energy is becoming a more attractive option for consumers
(Mohammadi et al., 2021). The majority of renewable energy is now
used to generate electricity, and renewable, combustible fuel is still in
limited supply. Natural gas makes up a large portion of energy con­
sumption, and more than 96% of natural gas comes from fossil fuels (US
EIA, 2022a). Increasing the proportion of renewable fuels is vital to
reduce GHG emissions and combating climate change (Badgett et al.,
2022).
The principal use of natural gas in the US is divided among: electric
power production (37%), industrial use (33%), residential use (15%),

* Corresponding author. Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Utah, 50 South Central Campus Drive, 3290 MEB, Salt Lake City, UT, 84112-9203,
USA.
E-mail address: kody.powell@utah.edu (K.M. Powell).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2022.135741
Received 25 August 2022; Received in revised form 8 December 2022; Accepted 24 December 2022
Available online 26 December 2022
0959-6526/© 2022 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Y. Chen et al.
Abbreviations
MSW Municipal solid waste
AD Anaerobic digestion
CC Combined cycle
CHP Combined heat and power
CNG Compressed natural gas
CO2 e CO2 equivalent
CRF Capital recovery factor
FOG Fats, oils and grease
FW Food waste
GHG Greenhouse gas
HRT Hydraulic retention time
commercial use (11%), and transportation use (3%) (US EIA, 2022b).
There has been an increasing push to decarbonize various industries
through electrification, where it is assumed that electric power comes
from renewable sources on the grid. Some sectors are hard to electrify,
such as the industrial sector, where a large portion of natural gas usage
goes to process heat for high-temperature processes (Immonen et al.,
2022). According to a study of industrial heating in European countries,
43% of industrial heating applications require heat above 400 ◦ C, with
this higher range of temperature generally requiring natural gas to
provide the heat (Vannoni et al., 2008). The high-temperature process
heating gap needs to be bridged to achieve an all-renewable energy
footprint in the future, and renewable natural gas (RNG) may be an
effective way to attain it.
Given the problem of food waste in landfills and the need for RNG,
collecting food waste that would be sent to landfills and turning it into
RNG using anaerobic digestion (AD) is a potential option. Anaerobic
digestion is a process where the organic content of food waste is
degraded by microorganisms, primarily producing methane and carbon
dioxide (CO2). AD as a potential waste-to-energy solution might be a
win-win scenario, as it could relieve landfill stress, reduce GHG emis­
sions, and provide an alternative fuel source while being a sustainable
means to cleaner production. Several critical research questions need to
be addressed in order to evaluate the effect of food waste to RNG via AD:
1) How much RNG can be produced from food waste and how much can
it offset the current fossil natural gas demand? 2) Is food waste-to-energy
(WTE) economically feasible via different AD pathways? 3) What is the
environmental impact of AD on food waste treatment?
The potential for energy production from food waste has been
evaluated by some studies, which are mostly national and state-scale
assessments. Nguyen et al. (2014) studied the energy potential from
AD of food waste in the municipal solid waste stream of urban areas in
Vietnam and concluded that the energy may provide 2.2–4.7% of the
transportation fuel consumption or 2.4–4.1% of the electricity demand.
Lou et al. (2013) investigated the potential for energy production in
Australia from AD of food waste and found that it would contribute to
3.5% of the current renewable energy production. Breunig et al. (2017)
assessed the bioenergy potential from food waste in California, and
found that it could potentially supply electricity averaging 530 MW.
Studies on the economic feasibility of converting food waste into
renewable energy have been conducted previously, and the economic
outcomes vary depending on the local market, production process, in­
centives, etc. Badgett and Milbrandt (2021) conducted a comprehensive
study about the cost-benefit of food waste disposal paths in the United
States and found that economic performance varies depending on the
plant scale, AD pathways, and the local market. Moriarty (2013) con­
ducted a feasibility study of AD of food waste in St. Bernard, Louisiana,
and obtained an unfavorable net present value (NPV) of − 6.7 M USD.
Huiru et al. (2019) investigated the economic feasibility of an AD plant
fed with canteen food waste in China, and more favorably calculated a
2
Journal of Cleaner Production 385 (2023) 135741
LCA Life cycle analysis
NPV Net present value
O&M Operation and maintenance
PNG Pipeline natural gas
RNG Renewable natural gas
TMP Theoretical methane production
TS Total solids
TS% Percentage of total solids to food waste
USD US dollar
VS Volatile solids
VS% Percentage of volatile solids to total solids
VSdestruct% Percentage of volatile solids being destructed
WTE Waste-to-energy
simple payback period of 7.8 years. There are several studies that un­
dertake life cycle analysis (LCA) of RNG production from food waste
feedstocks and demonstrate the potential environmental benefit of
turning food waste into renewable energy using AD. Lee et al. (2021)
conducted a life cycle analysis (LCA) of RNG production from waste
feedstocks, and estimated that the life cycle GHG emissions for RNG to
be between − 146 and 27 g carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2 e)/MJ.
Edwards et al. (2018) completed an LCA of food waste management
systems and concluded that AD-based systems greatly outperform
composting-based systems to decrease global warming. While many
studies have evaluated the energy potential, economic feasibility, and
environmental benefits of food waste to energy, there have been no
comprehensive studies across these aspects, especially on a plant and
city scale. Due to different research scales, technical processes, system
boundaries, and assumptions used, simply combining the results from
different pieces of literature is unacceptable. A thorough plant and city
scale study is necessary in order to give AD industries, investors, city
administrators, legislators, and other researchers an overall and prac­
tical view of turning food waste into renewable energy.
The goal of this study is to provide a comprehensive techno-
economic and environmental assessment of food waste to energy via
AD on a plant and city scale. In order to achieve this goal, this study
assumes a city with a population of 1 M people and quantifies the en­
ergy, economic and environmental effect of several AD pathways as an
alternative food waste solution to landfills. Four typical AD pathways
will be considered in this study: flare, pipeline natural gas (PNG),
combined heat and power (CHP), and combined cycle (CC). This study
will 1) describe the current state of technology, 2) quantify how much
energy can be generated from food waste and how much it can
contribute to current usage, and 3) quantify the economic performance
and the environmental impact of the four AD pathways and discuss the
factors that may affect the performance. This study specifically differs
from the work of Khoshnevisan et al. (2020) because all four of the
pathways consider the same AD process so that the potential pathways
following the AD can be evaluated equally, as opposed to evaluating
different urban biorefinery technologies. The work in this study also
includes a techno-economic assessment and environmental assessment,
while the work of Khoshnevisan et al. (2020) focuses solely on the
environmental impact of their proposed biorefinery platforms. In a
similar manner, the review from Caldeira et al. (2020), focuses on the
different pathways from different food waste sources and their value
added products, while this study considers an AD process from the
generalized food waste from a city and its potential economic and
environmental benefits from the four pathways mentioned above. The
major novelty of this work includes the following.
• This is the first work to provide a comprehensive plant and city scale
study of food waste disposal pathways via AD.
Y. Chen et al.
• Compared to previous studies that only consider a single component,
this study simultaneously evaluates energy, economic and environ­
mental effects.
• This study establishes a benchmark for researchers for a neutral
comparison in economic and environmental prospects.
2. Methods
The framework of this study is shown in Fig. 1. This study as a plant
and city scale study proposes AD as an alternative food waste disposal
method leading to potential economic and environmental benefits over
sending food waste to landfills. AD is the core of the proposed routine,
where the solid waste from AD will be sent to land applications for
fertilization, and the biogas will be sent to the next utilization process.
Four AD pathways for biogas utilization are proposed: flaring, PNG,
CHP, and CC.
2.1. Food waste characteristics
The food waste first needs to be characterized before the biomethane
potential (BMP) of the food waste can be estimated. Food waste comes in
a variety of forms and, depending on the sources of food waste, the
mixture components might vary substantially. The total solids, volatile
solids, and elemental content of food waste should be determined in
order to establish the BMP. The BMP value used in this study is calcu­
lated using the food waste wet weight (MFW ), total solids (TS) percent­
age to food waste (TS%), volatile solids (VS) percentage to TS (VS%),
volatile solids destructed percentage (VSdestruct %), and the theoretical
methane production per unit of VS destroyed (TMP), as Eq. (1) shows.
BMP = MFW × TS% × VS% × VSdestruct % × TMP
Various food waste characteristics including the TS%, VS% and the
TMP are gathered, and the median value is employed in this study so
that a representative stream of various forms of food waste sent to the
AD plant is evaluated. The density of the food waste can vary depending
on the solids content, oil content, and other characteristics of the food
waste and in order to simplify the calculation this study assumes a food
waste specific gravity (SG) of 1.1 (US EPA, 2021a).
Fig. 1. The framework of this study. Anaerobic digestion and the four proposed pathways in this study can produce renewable energy and reduce emissions, instead
of the current landfill routine.
Journal of Cleaner Production 385 (2023) 135741
2.2. Anaerobic digestion
The AD process is the starting process of the four pathways. Under
anaerobic conditions, food waste will be degraded by microorganisms
and produce mostly methane and CO2. The most widely accepted AD
configuration is the dry, mesophilic, two-stage AD system, which will be
used in this study. Anaerobic digesters, a hydrolysis tank, and a FOG (fat,
oil, and grease) tank are the most common components of the AD pro­
cess, as shown in Fig. 2. The VS destruction rate is related to the hy­
draulic retention time (HRT). This study assumes the (HRT) of the
anaerobic digester is 15 d with a VS destruction rate of 60% (Muhd
Tanimu et al., 2014). The HRT for the hydrolysis tank is 3 d (Menzel
et al., 2020). The rate of biogas leakage in AD is estimated to be 1% (Lee
et al., 2021). The food waste generated in this city that would be sent to
landfills (which is 36% of the city’s total food waste generated) will
instead be collected and sent to a stand-alone AD plant for disposal. The
potential food waste that is sent to the AD plant is 102,900 t/y for a city
with a population of 1 M. The anaerobic digesters and hydrolysis tank
can be sized using a constant feeding rate and a scale factor of 1.2 (scale
factor is the ratio of the designed tank volume and the theoretical
calculated tank volume).
Water, non-VS, and undigested VS make up the anaerobic digestion
effluent. The AD effluent is typically dewatered before being sent to a
biosolids treatment facility. After the dewatering process, the solids
content is estimated to be 25%. Land application of biosolids allows for
the reuse of nutrients and organic carbon at a low cost. If there is
accessible land and the quality of biosolids meets regulatory standards,
land application should become the preferable biosolids management
choice. The overall cost of biosolids treatment is computed by multi­
plying the total amount of biosolids generated and the biosolids treat­
(1)
ment unit cost. The effluent is first dewatered, and then the biosolids are
transferred to a biosolids treatment facility. The separated liquid is
treated in a wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) with a sewage cost.
The raw biogas from the anaerobic digester is then sent to each of the
four pathways considered in this study.
The capital cost of AD is estimated using the EPA Co-Digestion
Economic Analysis Tool (CoEAT) (US EPA, 2021a). CoEAT includes
the capital cost of reception, pre-processing, hydrolysis, AD, post
digestion, control system as well as several other costs associated with a
functioning AD plant. Full cost information is shown in Table S1. The
3
Y. Chen et al.
Fig. 2. The configuration of the anaerobic digestion block. The food waste undergoes pretreatment, anaerobic digestion and a dewatering process, and outputs raw
biogas, biosolids and wastewater.
cost of dewatering equipment is anticipated to be 5% of the overall AD
capital cost. Installation costs account for 15% of the total capital cost.
The cost of electricity, wastewater treatment, and other O&M costs such
as maintenance and labor, are included in the AD operation and main­
tenance (O&M) cost. The cost of operating and maintaining an AD
process could vary dramatically depending on the location, operating
conditions, process design, and other considerations. The annual AD
O&M cost as a percentage of total capital cost can range from 1% to 7%
according to several publications (2% from de Vries et al. (2005), 5%
from James M. Arati (2006), 7% from Oreggioni et al. (2017) and 1–6%
from Yap and Nixon (2015)). The annual AD O&M cost, excluding utility
expenses (electricity, natural gas and wastewater sewage), is assumed to
be 5% of total capital costs in this study. The AD energy consumption
includes the usage of electricity and natural gas. Electricity usage is
expected to be 0.1 kWh/dry kg food waste, and natural gas consumption
is expected to be 0.16 MJ/dry kg food waste (Lee et al., 2021). A mass
balance is used to calculate the volume of wastewater sewage.
2.3. Flare
The flaring process is the simplest of the four AD pathways, as shown
in Fig. 3. Most places have regulations stating that biogas cannot be
Fig. 3. Configuration of AD coupled with a flare. In this process, the raw biogas produced from food waste is flared and there are no useable energy products.
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Journal of Cleaner Production 385 (2023) 135741
released into the atmosphere and must be flared because biogas contains
a substantial quantity of methane, which is a GHG with a CO2 equivalent
of 28. The capital and O&M cost of flares are estimated from the data in
an EPA report using power regression, as shown in Fig. S1 (US EPA,
2016). The efficiency of flaring is estimated to be 98% (Cai et al., 2015).
2.4. Pipeline natural gas
Upgrading to pipeline quality RNG involves cleaning the raw biogas
(removing sulfur, siloxane, and usually water vapor), separating the
methane from the carbon dioxide and delivering a product that meets
the local gas utility gas standard. The configuration of the AD-PNG
pathway can be seen in Fig. 4. The biogas upgrading method used in
this study is pressure swing adsorption (PSA). When applying the PSA
approach, the purity of CH4 can reach 97.5% (Starr et al., 2012). The
methane recovery rate is set at 90% (US EPA, 2016), and the tail gas is
prepared for flaring. PSA leakage is assumed to be approximately 3.5%,
and the power usage of biogas upgrading is projected to be 915 MJ/t
CO2 removed (Starr et al., 2012). The capital and O&M costs of biogas
upgrading and injection are determined using data from the EPA report,
as shown in Fig. S1 (US EPA, 2016).
Y. Chen et al. Journal of Cleaner Production 385 (2023) 135741

Fig. 4. Configuration of AD coupled with PNG production. This process converts food waste to renewable natural gas products.

2.5. Combined heat and power costs are the same as for CHP in this study, at 2,500 USD/kW and 0.016
USD/kWh, respectively.
CHP typically consists of a prime mover and a waste heat boiler,
where the electricity will be produced by the prime mover, and the 2.7. Process modeling
generated heat will be further utilized by a waste heat boiler to produce
steam for co-located process heating, as shown in Fig. 5. CHP has a Each process is modeled using the methods described in the previous
variety of techniques. Sorting from the smallest to largest according to sections. A Jupyter Notebook with the calculations for each unit is
the inlet biogas flowrate, the techniques include a small rich-burn en­ available upon request from the authors.
gine, microturbine, rich-burn engine, fuel cell, small lean-burn engine,
lean-burn engine, and combustion turbine. The smaller size CHP usually
2.8. Baseline price
has a greater unit capital and O&M cost and a lower electric efficiency
(US EPA, 2011). The inlet biogas flowrate in this study fits in the size
The economic performance will be affected by various prices
range of a lean-burn engine. The lean-burn engine CHP has a thermal
including tipping fees, biosolids disposal costs, electricity, natural gas,
output ratio of 3,587 kJ/kWh and an electrical efficiency of 0.38 (US
compressed natural gas, and wastewater sewage pricing, which are all
EPA, 2011). The CHP-sized power (PCHP) then can be determined using
subject to change. A tipping fee is a fee paid by anyone who disposes of
the inlet biogas flowrate (Qbiogas) and the electrical efficiency (ηelectricity ),
food waste in an AD plant. The biosolids disposal cost is the unit cost for
as Eq. (2) shows. The capital cost of CHP utilizing a lean-burn engine is
biosolids transportation and dumping. Renewable electricity and RNG
projected to be 2,500 USD/kW, with an O&M cost of 0.016 USD/kWh
are priced separately from electricity and natural gas for plant energy
(US EPA, 2011). The CHP system runs for 8,760 h each year.
consumption in order to account for incentives. A sensitivity analysis is
PCHP = Qbiogas × ηelectricity (2) then conducted to evaluate the economic impact of price variations;
however, a baseline price must be determined first. The baseline price is
2.6. Combined cycle determined using the typical values, without taking into consideration
incentives, as indicated in Table 1.
CC is similar to CHP in that it features a prime mover that can
generate electricity from biogas. The difference is that CC has a steam 2.9. Economic performance analysis
turbine downstream of the waste heat boiler that can use the steam to
create more electricity, as shown in Fig. 6. The electrical efficiency of CC In this study, the economic performance will be quantified using the
is expected to be 0.56 (Fuess and Zaiat, 2018). The unit capital and O&M levelized cost per ton NPV method developed by Badgett and Milbrandt

Fig. 5. Configuration of AD coupled with CHP. This process converts food waste to electricity along with steam generation for space heating use.

5
Y. Chen et al. Journal of Cleaner Production 385 (2023) 135741

Fig. 6. Configuration of AD coupled with CC. This pathway converts food waste to electricity with higher efficiency than a traditional electric generator.

et al., 2010). It is assumed that the CHP and CC fully combust the
Table 1
methane in the raw biogas so that all of it will be converted to CO2 and
Baseline price.
water.
Item Baseline price Unit

Food waste tipping fee 35 USD/t 2.11. Methods limitations

Biosolids disposal 55 USD/t
Electricity (consume) 0.06 USD/kWh
Renewable electricity (sell) 0.06 USD/kWh
Natural gas (consume) 4.7 USD/GJ
Renewable natural gas (sell) 4.7 USD/GJ
Wastewater sewage 1.3 USD/m3
(2021). NPV is a function of the costs and benefits for the facility. The
sum of annualized costs and revenue is divided by the total wet waste
accepted by the facility (MFW ) to estimate the levelized cost per ton NPV
in units of USD/t, as Eq. (3) shows. This levelized cost per ton of food
waste is comparable to the notion of a levelized cost of electricity
(LCOE). The capital cost is annualized using the capital recovery factor
(CRF). The CRF is calculated using Eq. (4). The interest rate i is expected
to be 0.06%, and the facility lifetime (n) will be 30 y in this study.
Revenue − Capital Cost × CRF − O&M Cost
NPV = (3)
MFW
n
i(1 + i)
CRF = (4)
(1 + i)n − 1
2.10. Environmental performance analysis
An LCA will be used to evaluate the environmental impact of landfills
and the four AD pathways. GHG emissions, particularly methane and
CO2, will be considered in this study. Methane, which has a CO2
equivalent of 28 times that of CO2, has a significantly stronger climatic
influence. The emission factors of different processes are collected and
used for the LCA to estimate the environmental performance of different
food waste disposal pathways. The biogenic carbon uptake is the carbon
in the atmosphere that is thought to have been sequestered into the food
waste as it originates from photosynthesis. The biogenic carbon uptake
in this study is estimated using 0.4917 of carbon in dry materials (Lee
et al., 2009). The landfill emission rate is 2,708 kg CO2 e/t dry matter,
based on a 59% landfill gas collection efficiency and a 36% oxidation
factor (Lee et al., 2017). The onsite energy consumption will be
accounted as indirect emissions, which are the GHG emissions when
electricity and natural gas are produced. This study estimates that
electricity consumption emits 550 g CO2 e/kWh based on the US power
generating mix (Lee et al., 2017). Natural gas is thought to come from
the fossil natural gas production pathway in the United States, which
emits 12.4 g CO2 e/MJ of natural gas (Lee et al., 2017). The digestate
emission rate in this study is estimated to be 4.38 L CH4/kg digestate
since the bulk of the carbon in digestate will be sequestered (Tambone
Some limitations of the methods of this study are that it does not
perform a comprehensive error analysis due to insufficient published
data on costing. Also not included is an exergy analysis to assess the
value of energy conversion such as in Aghbashlo et al. (2022). New and
unproven technologies are also not included such as solar drying, ther­
mophilic AD, and biosolids pyrolysis. Lastly, it should be noted that
producing renewable energy from food waste could elevate the current
pressure on edible resources to produce renewable energy carriers, as
illustrated by Shams Esfandabadi et al. (2022), but this effect is not
analyzed.
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Food waste characteristics
The properties of food waste can vary significantly depending on the
source and the TS, VS, and TMP numbers vary from study to study.
Comprehensive data from the literature was collected to depict the
distribution of food waste characteristics, as shown in Fig. S2. The me­
dian values of TS, VS, and TMP will be used in this study, which are
22.0%, 94.5%, and 589.5 mL/g VS, respectively. The standard deviation
of collected TS, VS, and TMP data are 4.0%, 3.5%, and 66.0 mL/g VS,
respectively. A wide variety of methane potential, as well as economic
and environmental performance may be expected due to the wide range
of food waste characteristics. Using the median values from literature
gives typical plant performance. Upon building an anaerobic digester,
full characterization of these values is needed, given the food waste
source, to fully identify economic and environmental performance given
expected food waste characteristics.
3.2. Process modeling
Once the amount and the characteristic of food waste are deter­
mined, the stand-alone AD plant can be sized and modeled. With the
assumption of the constant feeding and steady-state operation, the sizing
and modeling in this study are achieved using a mass and energy balance
with parameters described in Section 2. The process modeling parame­
ters, inputs, and outputs are summarized in Table 2.
3.3. Methane potential
The methane potential of anaerobic digestion can be calculated using
the values illustrated in Section 3.1. A ton of food waste can produce 74

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Y. Chen et al. Journal of Cleaner Production 385 (2023) 135741

Table 2 RNG coverage rate.

Process modeling data.
Block Item Amount Unit Source 3.4. Economic performance
AD Annual food 102,900 t/y Assume 36% of the FW will be
waste intake collected from a 1 M This section assesses the economic performance of food waste AD.
population city The capital cost and the O&M cost of each biogas processing pathway,
Food waste SG 1.1 – US EPA (2021a) including flare, PNG, CHP, and CC can be estimated after the system is
Food waste TS% 22.0 % Section 3.1
sized. The cost is summarized in Table 3. The energy cost, wastewater
Food waste VS% 94.5 % Section 3.1
Food waste TMP 589.5 ml CH4/ Section 3.1 sewage cost, and other O&M costs are all included in the AD O&M cost.
g VS The AD O&M cost is roughly 6.1 USD/t of food waste in the baseline
Food waste inlet 256.2 m3/d scenario. This study represents typical operating costs from literature
flowrate but that could vary depending on factors including local utility costs,
Anaerobic 15 d Muhd Tanimu et al. (2014)
digester HRT
labor costs, and different AD processes. For example, different digester
Hydrolysis tank 3 d Menzel et al. (2020) tank designs, digester cover designs, and digester mixing systems, will
HRT all have a substantial influence on the actual O&M cost. The biosolids
Anaerobic 4,612 m3 treatment accounts for a major portion of the cost because of the large
digesters size
disposal amount mainly caused by the high water content. This is due to
Hydrolysis tank 922.4 m3
size the large overall biosolids weight, which might result in a significant
VS destruction 60 % increase in transportation and disposal costs. The cost of biosolids
rate disposal, on the other hand, is difficult to quantify due to the multiplicity
Electricity 2.26 GWh/y 0.1 kWh/dry kg FW (Lee of biosolids treatment options. The cost of a biosolids disposal unit is
consumed et al., 2021)
Natural gas 3,621 GJ/y 0.16 MJ/dry kg FW (Lee et al.,
heavily influenced by available land application sites, municipal regu­
consumed 2021) lations, and transportation distance. A stand-alone AD plant should
Biogas CH4% 65 % optimize its biosolids treatment approach since lowering the cost of
Raw biogas 1,315 m3/h biosolids treatment would drastically enhance the NPV.
output
The NPV breakdown is summarized in Fig. 7, which visualizes the
Wastewater 50,840 m3/y
output cost of the four pathways. The capital cost of the flare pathway is the
Biosolids output 39,200 t/y lowest of the four since the flare equipment is inexpensive. The biogas
PNG Upgraded RNG 246,000 GJ/y cannot be utilized and instead is combusted, hence the sole source of
output revenue for this pathway is the food waste tipping fee. The flare paths
Electricity 1.92 GWh/y 915 MJ/t CO2 removed (Starr
consumed et al., 2012)
may be about break-even (with NPV of 1.2 USD/t) when the tipping fee
CHP Electric 0.38 – US EPA (2011) is 35 USD/t.
efficiency The PNG pathway has a relatively high capital cost due to the high
Size 3,414 kW cost of biogas upgrading. PNG upgrading and PNG injection costs make
Electricity 29.90 GWh/y
up about 57% of the total capital cost. It is calculated that biogas
output
Thermal output 107,300 GJ/y 3,587 kJ/kWh (US EPA, upgrading and injection have an O&M cost as high as 15 USD/t of food
2011) waste. Although there is still considerable additional revenue from the
CC Electric 0.56 – Fuess and Zaiat (2018) sales of the RNG to the pipeline, which is 1.17 M USD each year under
efficiency the baseline scenario, due to the high capital and O&M cost, the NPV of
Size 5,031 kW
PNG routes is reduced to − 9.1 USD/t of food waste. Without the RNG
Electricity 44.07 GWh
output credit and incentives, the PNG project is anticipated to incur a net loss
when the baseline price for RNG is equal to the price for fossil natural
gas.
In this study, the CHP revenue comes from the tipping fee and the
m3 of methane, and a total of 7,565,000 m3/y of methane can be pro­ sale of renewable electricity. Every ton of food waste may provide 291
duced from this stand-alone AD plant. The biogas produced by the AD kWh of electricity and a total of 29.90 GWh per year, adding an extra
can be upgraded to nearly pure methane and injected into the natural 1.79 M USD in income in the baseline scenario without any incentives
gas pipeline network for further consumption with the AD-PNG for renewable electricity. CHP may generate about 1.1 GJ/t of heat from
pathway. According to EIA data in 2021, the natural gas usage in resi­ food waste for use in the plant. The total CHP heat output of the stand-
dential, commercial, industrial, vehicle fuel (i.e., CNG vehicle fleet) and alone AD plant is 107,300 GJ/y, which is enough to completely offset
electric power generation is 396, 277, 697, 4.52, and 958 m3 per capita, the heating demands of the facility (18,110 GJ/y). As it would be
respectively (US EIA, 2022c). The produced RNG from this challenging to sell the excess heat, the extra thermal energy might not be
stand-alone-AD plant could cover the natural gas usage of 1.9% of res­ easy to generate considerable extra revenue. In fringe cases where an
idential use, 2.7% of commercial use, 1.1% of industrial use, 167.5% of AD-CHP plant is located next to a facility willing to purchase heat, extra
the current existing CNG vehicle fleet, or 0.7% of the natural gas used in revenue is potentially available from this extra 89,180 GJ/y (equating to
electric power generation in the US. High-temperature processes ac­
count for 43% of the natural gas consumption in the industrial sector. If Table 3
all the RNG produced is applied to industrial high-temperature pro­ Capital cost and O&M cost of each block.
cesses, the RNG produced from food waste can cover 2.5% of the natural
Block Capital Cost (USD) O&M Cost (USD/y) Source
gas usage in this area. The results suggest that the natural gas produced
AD 8,145,000 O&M cost: 327,400 See Section 2.2
by the food waste to energy process can contribute to a decrease in the
Biosolids disposal: 2,156,000
use of fossil natural gas and increase the share of renewable energy in Flare 920,400 37,000 See Fig. S1
the current energy system. The amount of recoverable food waste is PNG Upgrade: 8,527,000 Upgrade: 1,447,000 See Fig. S1
what limits how much of most portions are covered. More biodegradable Inject: 2,433,000 Inject: 88,560
waste, including wastewater sludge, green waste, manure, and other CHP 8,534,000 478,400 US EPA (2011)
CC 12,580,000 705,100 US EPA (2011)
materials, should be incorporated in the future in order to reach a higher

7
Y. Chen et al. Journal of Cleaner Production 385 (2023) 135741

Fig. 7. NPV breakdown of four pathways. The stacked bar components represent the different levelized cost and revenue, and the black dots indicate the net NPV of
pathways. The baseline scenario is without renewable energy incentives.

422,700 USD/y) but it is not considered in this work. Under the baseline
scenario, the NPV of the CHP route is 9.1 USD/t of food waste.
CC plants feature an additional steam turbine that converts steam
into additional electricity, this can reduce the wasting of surplus heat
and increase electricity revenue. When the incoming biogas flowrate is
maintained fixed, CC has a higher capital cost than CHP due to its larger
size, but the revenue from the renewable electricity of CC is more than
CHP. 428 kWh of electricity can be produced by the CC for every ton of
processed food waste equating to a total of 44.07 GWh per year, and the
sales of renewable electricity of the AD-CC pathway can produce an
additional 2.64 M USD of revenue. Under the baseline scenario, the CC
pathway has a higher overall NPV than the CHP pathway, which is 12.2
USD/t of food waste.
In the baseline scenario, the AD-CC and AD-CHP pathways have
higher NPV, whereas the AD-flare pathway is just break-even, and AD-
PNG is a net loss. The cost of treating the biosolids is conservatively
estimated in the baseline scenario, and the 35 USD/t tipping fee is fair,
which is less than the typical landfill tipping rate of 55 USD/t (Badgett
and Milbrandt, 2021). It is anticipated that changes to the tipping fee,
the cost of treating biosolids, and other costs would have a substantial
influence on economic performance. Although the AD-PNG pathway has
a negative NPV in the baseline scenario, this is the case when RNG in­
centives are not considered. An RNG incentive has been put into place in
several nations and regions, which can significantly boost the economic
success of the AD-PNG pathway.

Fig. 8. Impact of prices on four food waste AD pathways in NPV. The NPV with the price change is compared with the baseline scenario (yellow dash line).

8
Y. Chen et al.
3.5. Economic sensitivity analysis
So far, this study has established and used baseline pricing for the
tipping charge for food waste, the disposal of biosolids, the purchase and
sale of electricity, the purchase and sale of natural gas, and the price of
wastewater sewage, as shown in Table 1. These prices may vary signif­
icantly depending on the location, governmental regulations, market
environment, and other factors. A sensitivity analysis is essential to
discuss the effects of changing prices and is presented in the following
section.
The flare pathway can barely achieve a break-even balance when the
tipping fee price is set at 35 USD/t of food waste, as shown in Fig. 8 (a).
Without incentives, the AD-PNG pathway requires a higher tipping fee
(44 USD/t food waste) to break even, although this is still less than the
MSW landfill tipping fee.
A significant expense is related to disposing of biosolids. The avail­
ability of a biosolids disposal location has a significant influence on how
much it costs to treat biosolids. If a land application location is close by,
the disposal cost could be much lower. As Fig. 8 (b) shows, a relatively
low biosolids treatment cost can result in a positive NPV of all AD
pathways. When the biosolids treatment cost is high, flares and PNG
pathways without the incentive will not yield a positive NPV.
The costs of acquiring electricity, natural gas, and wastewater
treatment are all included in the utility cost in the sensitivity analysis.
The change in utility costs will not significantly affect the NPV, as
illustrated in Fig. 8 (c).
The PNG pathways have a negative NPV under the baseline scenario
when there are no credits for renewable energy. According to the
sensitivity analysis, if the RNG price is greater than 8.5 USD/GJ, the
PNG pathway will have a positive NPV. The PNG pathway may turn out
to be economical if a renewable energy credit is available to raise the
price of RNG, as shown in Fig. 8 (d). Many nations and regions now give
credits for renewable energy. For instance, in the US, the EPA regulates
renewable energy credit, which is monetized as RINs. Biogas from waste
digesters falls under the category of “D5 RIN,” with prices ranging from
0.05 to 3.00 USD/RIN (US EPA, 2021b). RNG has 11.17 RINs per GJ, as a
result, the price of RNG may be increased from the base price by
0.6–33.5 USD per GJ. With the price of D5 RINs now hovering at 1.5
USD, the RNG selling price might reach 21.5 USD/GJ, bringing the NPV
Fig. 9. GHG emissions of different food waste solutions. The positive stacked bar components represent the various GHG emission sources, and the negative
components indicate the GHG emission savings from renewable energy. The black dots show the net GHG emissions of all the pathways.
9
Journal of Cleaner Production 385 (2023) 135741
to 31 USD/t of food waste. This demonstrates that the local renewable
energy support policy could have a significant influence on the eco­
nomic outcome of the AD-PNG pathways, and a strong renewable nat­
ural gas credit would assist in obtaining favorable economics.
The cost of renewable power has an influence on both the CHP and
CC paths. As the cost rises, the NPV of both routes will also increase, as
shown in Fig. 8 (e). There is no EPA regulation governing credits for
renewable power that are comparable to RINs. A future credit for
renewable energy is anticipated to encourage the growth of the AD-
onsite generator path to produce renewable electricity.
The economic results of this study demonstrate a similar trend to the
study of Badgett and Milbrandt (2021) who similarly investigated the
factors that may have an influence on the NPV of dry AD and found that
the NPV is most sensitive to the tipping fee. With the tipping fee between
0 and 150 USD/t, the NPV can range from 0 to 200 USD/t. The NPV of
the PNG pathway with incentives in this study is also similar to Badgett
and Milbrandt’s results, both are around 30 USD/t. Due to different
process assumptions, they have a relatively higher NPV in the flare and
CHP pathways, which are about 35 USD/t and 20 USD/t, respectively.
Despite the possibility that certain outcomes may not be directly com­
parable, the general trend still reaffirms their study.
3.6. Environmental performance
The breakdown of the GHG emissions from the four AD pathways
and landfills using an LCA is shown in Fig. 9. The CO2 e/t food waste is
used to calculate the GHG emissions. The food waste itself is carbon
negative, as indicated by the biogenic carbon uptake, since the CO2 in
the atmosphere is thought to have been sequestered into the food waste
as it originates from photosynthesis. For the conventional landfill solu­
tion, methane and CO2 will be produced when the food waste de­
composes in the anaerobic environment. In contrast to AD, which is able
to trap the majority of methane, landfills release a sizable quantity of
uncaptured methane into the atmosphere. Food waste should be carbon
neutral if it is fully converted to CO2 by biological conversion, burning,
and other processes. In landfills, however, methane is released from food
waste causing a carbon positive process because methane has a 28 times
CO2 equivalent, which results in net GHG emissions of 199.1 kg CO2
equivalent per ton of food waste. This indicates that landfills will
Y. Chen et al. Journal of Cleaner Production 385 (2023) 135741

increase greenhouse gas emissions and exacerbate global warming. Table 4

The offgas, digestate emission, natural gas consumption, electricity Comparison table to values found in literature.
consumption, and leakage are the sources of GHG emissions for the flare Metric This study Literature Unit References
AD process. The term “offgas” in this study refers to the onsite CO2
NPV of AD- 1.2 (baseline) 35 USD/t Badgett and
emissions, which include the emissions from the combustion of biogas Flare Milbrandt (2021)
and natural gas, and the AD tailgas (the biogas contains 35% of the CO2 NPV of AD- 31 (with 30 USD/t Badgett and
and it will be emitted into the atmosphere). The offgas is primarily PNG incentives) Milbrandt (2021)
responsible for the GHG emissions from the flare pathway. As digestate NPV of AD- 9.1 (baseline) 20 USD/t Badgett and
CHP Milbrandt (2021)
is a residue of the AD process and has high biological stability, it may be Emission of − 77.6 − 146 – 27 (CO2 e)/ Lee et al. (2021)
difficult to degrade naturally into CO2 or methane, as a result, the ma­ AD-PNG MJ
jority of the carbon in digestate would become sequestered carbon. The
GHG emissions during the natural gas production process are what cause
natural gas (NG) consumption. The GHG emissions associated with studies, suggesting that AD is an economically feasible approach to food
natural gas consumption are small due to low natural gas consumption waste treatment. The environmental outcomes demonstrate that AD for
required in the AD process. In a similar manner, electricity consumption food waste treatment will have a negative carbon footprint for all four
results in GHG emissions in the electricity production process. Despite pathways considered, with the lowest emissions being the AD-CC
different GHG sources in the four pathways, they all result in carbon- pathway at − 362.6 kg CO2 e/t of food waste. This is contrasted with
negative net GHG emissions with the AD flare pathway having the traditional landfills which have positive net GHG emissions that accel­
highest value at − 101.5 kg CO2 e/t food waste. erate global warming. This indicates that AD in combination with any of
The PNG pathway has a lower offgas emission rate than the other the pathways discussed in this work is a more environmentally
three pathways since there is no onsite biogas combustion, but leaking responsible and sustainable method for the handling of food waste than
causes a higher emission rate due to the relatively higher leakage rate of landfills.
the PSA upgrading process. PNG has negative GHG emissions (show as This study gives an intuitive and concrete understanding of what
RNG credit), which allows it to offset the equivalent amount of fossil food waste to renewable energy options look like, and provides a clear
natural gas GHG emissions. With net GHG emissions of − 219.9 kg CO2 breakdown of the costs and emissions of each section, allowing busi­
e/t food waste (equivalent to − 77.6 g CO2 e/MJ methane produced), the nesses and researchers to identify the most expensive and polluting el­
PNG route is likewise carbon negative. The results show the emission of ements and make improvements going forward. The results of this study
the PNG pathway in this study is comparable to Lee et al.’s (2021) can help AD industries and investors estimate plant scale, investment
values, which estimated that the life cycle GHG emissions for RNG range costs, and profitability while considering local policies and markets.
between − 146 and 27 g carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2 e)/MJ. Table 4 This study can assist city administrators and legislators in determining
compares part of the economic and environmental results of this study appropriate supportive policies. This study also establishes a benchmark
with existing literature. for other researchers to better understand food waste to renewable en­
Both CHP and CC emit near equivalent amounts of onsite greenhouse ergy pathways and allows for a neutral comparison. A potential future
gases. A significant amount of offgas emissions is produced by the focus of this study could be on new technologies such as solar drying
burning of biogas. Both CHP and CC have a sizeable portion of the technology and thermophilic AD. Comprehensive error analysis and
electricity credit since the generation of renewable electricity eliminates exergy analysis could also be included in future research.
the GHG emissions from the conventional electricity production process.
The net GHG emissions of CC are lower than that of CHP because CC may Credit author statement
generate more renewable electricity. The net GHG emissions of AD-CHP
and AD-CC are − 289.1 and − 362.6 kg CO2 e/t of food waste, Yunzhi Chen: Conceptualization, Methodology, Writing – original
respectively. draft, Writing – review & editing, Visualization. Lizzie Pinegar:
All AD pathways result in a reduction in GHG emissions. Utilizing the Conceptualization, Methodology. Jake Immonen: Writing – original
AD process to handle food waste will be better for the environment than draft, Writing – review & editing. Kody M. Powell: Conceptualization,
using a conventional landfill. The environmental analysis measures the Methodology, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing, Su­
GHG emissions of different food waste disposal pathways, and the re­ pervision, Project administration, Funding acquisition.
sults show that AD is a beneficial landfill alternative for the management
of food waste from an environmental standpoint. Declaration of competing interest

4. Conclusions and future directions
This study is the first to provide a comprehensive plant and city scale
study of food waste disposal pathways via AD. Compared to previous
studies that only consider a single component, this study simultaneously
evaluates the energy, economic and environmental effects. The food
waste collected from landfills can produce a considerable amount of
RNG. 246,000 GJ of RNG will be produced each year via AD-PNG
pathways. This RNG can supply natural gas usage for 1.9% of residen­
tial use, 2.7% of commercial use, 1.1% of industrial use, 167.5% of the
current existing CNG vehicle fleet, 0.7% of electric power generation, or
2.5% of the industrial high-temperature heating process. The economic
results demonstrate that all food waste AD pathways, with the exception
of PNG, will have a positive NPV in the baseline scenario. Without any
incentives, the AD-CC pathway is expected to have the highest NPV of
12.2 USD/t food waste. The AD-PNG pathway will perform well
economically with an NPV of 31 USD/t of food waste with renewable
energy credit RINs. The results demonstrate a similar trend to previous
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence
the work reported in this paper.
Data availability
No data was used for the research described in the article.
Acknowledgements
This work is funded by the United States Department of Energy
(DOE) under DE-EE0009708 grant which is affiliated with the DOE In­
dustrial Assessment Centers Program, and the Utah Governor’s Office of
Energy Development under contract number 171881.
Appendix A. Supplementary data
Supplementary data to this article can be found online at https://doi.

10
Y. Chen et al.
org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2022.135741.
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