UC Berkeley

Diverting organic material from landfills can produce myriad benefits such as reduced landfill emissions and capacity requirements, renewable energy generation, and nutrient recovery. Therefore, regulators are implementing policies to achieve these goals, with California taking particularly notable action through an organics diversion mandate that is expected to require well over 100 new organic waste processing facilities to be built in a short timeframe. The need for a completely new organic waste recycling infrastructure system presents a unique opportunity to encourage sustainable development through policy. This dissertation examines the economic and climate impacts of organic waste management facilities from various scales and perspectives. The first study presented explores the economics of privately-owned large-scale dry anaerobic digestion (AD) facilities to identify the key drivers of profitability, impacts of market forces, and the efficacy of policy incentives. Assumptions are grounded in empirical data collected in California, where a small number of dry AD facilities are operating and aggressive landfill diversion mandates are driving development of organics handling facilities. Results describe the economies of scale, key costs and revenues, sources of uncertainty, and comparison of various energy utilization pathways for these facilities. A Levelized Cost of Disposal metric is presented and compared to alternative disposal options, namely landfilling.The second and third studies present two parallel models that examine the organic waste management system across all of California, considering four waste facility types, two energy utilization pathways, over 60,000 spatially explicit waste feedstock points and over 300 potential facility locations. The first of these two models, the Organic Recycling Facility Optimization (ORFO) Model, is a mixed-integer linear programming model that optimizes the waste infrastructure system according to both societal economic cost and greenhouse gas emissions optimization criteria. The second model, the Organic Recycling Facility Investment (ORFI) model, considers the private sector development opportunities in California based on the potential profitability of facilities of different types and sizes, at different locations, and under different energy-related economic incentive levels. Results from each of these models describe the statewide systems developed under both public and private sector objectives, and examine the impact of commingled municipal waste streams, opportunities for byproduct value creation, and state diversion and energy goals. Further analysis of these results in regards to current and future waste and energy policy and existing waste-related infrastructure is presented in the final analysis chapter of this study.