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Pathways to cost-optimal and net-zero emissions irrigation in the United States

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Abstract

Irrigated agriculture enhances crop yields and climate resilience but also contributes to CO₂ emissions through energy use. Here, we apply energy system modeling to evaluate cost-emission trade-offs in electrified irrigation across the United States, integrating hourly energy production and historical water demand. We find that current practices are highly inefficient, leading to 23% (0.89 billion US dollar) higher costs and 39% (3.8 million metric tons of CO2) more CO2 emissions compared to the cost-optimal scenario, primarily due to reliance on diesel water pumps and limited solar photovoltaic adoption. Under cost-optimal conditions, 6.6 gigawatt of solar photovoltaic is deployed, and electric water pump installation capacity increase by 14% (11.3 106 m3h-1) relative to current levels. Emission reductions of 85% are achievable at marginal additional cost (+0.7%), whereas reaching net-zero roughly doubles system costs relative to business-as-usual. Renewable-powered electrified irrigation can thus deliver substantial, low-cost emission reductions but requires operational adaptation to solar-based systems.

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Data availability

The data generated in this study have been deposited in the Zenodo database under accession code https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18803044.

Code availability

The code used in this study is available in the Zenodo repository at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18803044. The open-source ZEN-garden optimization framework is available at https://github.com/ZEN-universe/ZEN-garden.

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Acknowledgements

J.S. thanks Johannes Burger and the Reliability and Risk Engineering Lab at ETH Zurich for advice on using ZEN-Garden.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Biosphere Sciences and Engineering, Carnegie Institution for Science, Stanford, USA

    Jara Späte, Stefano Mingolla & Lorenzo Rosa

  2. Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

    Jara Späte

  3. School of Science and Technology, IE University, Cardenal Zúñiga, Segovia, Spain

    Stefano Mingolla

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  1. Jara Späte
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  2. Stefano Mingolla
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L.R. conceived and supervised the research. J.S. developed the model, performed the simulations, and analyzed the data. J.S., S.M., and L.R. designed the study, interpreted the results, and contributed to writing the manuscript.

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Lorenzo Rosa.

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Späte, J., Mingolla, S. & Rosa, L. Pathways to cost-optimal and net-zero emissions irrigation in the United States.
Nat Commun (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-71122-7

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