Water, Energy, and the Future of Farming

IEDO’s New CEA Accelerator Will Help Develop New Models for Low-Emission American Agriculture

When you walk up and down the aisles of your local grocery store, it’s easy to focus on your list and not the water, energy, and complex logistics that go in to producing, packaging, and transporting everything in front of you. Modern agriculture provides us with the food we eat daily. Yet, the food and beverage industry is among the top five energy‐intensive and greenhouse gas (GHG)‐emitting industries in the United States. Agriculture is responsible for 42% of all irrigation freshwater withdrawals and 52% of land use for cropping, grazing, and farmsteads, according to 2012 land base data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). We can’t live without food, but we also can’t continue to produce it unsustainably. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is growing innovative solutions to produce the food we need without the emissions. 

To help decarbonize American agriculture, DOE’s Industrial Efficiency and Decarbonization Office (IEDO) is investing $2.5 million to support the deployment of technologies and innovative business models in the promising area of Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA). CEA can supplement our current food production by producing local food concentrated in a greenhouse or other indoor facility, thereby using less land and water than traditional outdoor fields. By controlling the variables necessary for plant growth (energy in the form of light, water, nutrients, HVAC, etc.), these indoor farms allow for year-round food production, which can create local jobs, reduce the transportation distance from farm-to-table, and reduce reliance on foreign imports and vulnerable supply chains.

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory will lead a two-year accelerator program promoting CEA facilities in communities nationwide. Conducted in collaboration with the Resource Innovation Institute, a not-for-profit, public-private partnership advancing food security, and with consultation from the USDA, this collaboration will address four-season food production across the U.S., with a variety of focused case studies, including in food deserts – communities with limited access to fresh, affordable food at grocery stores. 

This accelerator will analyze the technical, economic, and social benefits of efficient operations of CEA and explore the smart manufacturing tools and processes that can translate to the high-tech indoor farming space. Leveraging IEDO’s existing public-private consortia and technical assistance programs to work with geographically diverse communities, the CEA Accelerator’s goal is to better understand the regional barriers to constructing and retrofitting facilities for CEA across different U.S. landscapes and educate stakeholders across the food supply chain on best practices regarding energy- and water-efficient technologies. Community partners will gain access to DOE and other government resources, get screened for CEA feasibility, and connect with CEA ecosystem players to sustain their operations.

The CEA accelerator program will:

• Compile a catalog of existing and emerging CEA energy/water efficiency technologies.
• Develop a CEA feasibility tool.
• Engage local and state community organizations as well as food supply chain stakeholders, such as food distributors, state energy offices, utilities, and academia. 
• Support the adoption of technologies that drive U.S. industrial decarbonization, productivity, and competitiveness. 

In addition to the work on the CEA accelerator, DOE is also collaborating with USDA on several other initiatives, including working groups with the Bioenergy Technologies Office, the Water Power Technologies Office, and the Solar Energy Technologies Office, to advance research and innovation across the nexus of energy, water, and agriculture. A public report on such activities can be found here. 

CEA touches on many important parts of the water-energy nexus, offering opportunities for reducing the environmental impact of industrial farming operations. DOE is committed to understanding the implications of the water-energy nexus across industries, including agriculture. The dynamic interaction between water and energy is the backbone of our energy system. Water is used in all phases of energy production and energy is required to extract, convey, and deliver water and to treat wastewater. Learn more about the water-energy nexus and what IEDO is doing to ensure our water systems are more resilient, secure, affordable, and equitable.