Request for 104g General proposals
Proposals are sought on the topic of data centers and water usage:
The rapid expansion of data centers and other water intensive industries that rely on public supply systems has outpaced the availability of accurate, transparent, and timely information about their water use. Existing datasets often contain gaps, inconsistencies, and uncertainties that limit the ability of communities, utilities, and policymakers to make informed decisions. As public concern grows and water resource pressures intensify, there is a critical need for improved methodologies that can more reliably characterize industrial water withdrawals, cooling demands, and local impacts. This RFP seeks to address these challenges by advancing observational and analytical approaches capable of reducing uncertainty and strengthening confidence in publicly available information.
The scope includes the development, testing, and demonstration of innovative methodologies for observing, estimating, and validating water use associated with data centers and other industries drawing from public supply systems including the identification of variables for accurate prediction of data center water usage, quantification of the uncertainty around those predictions, and the ability to forecast future scenarios of usage. Proposers must design approaches that integrate diverse data sources–such as utility records, operational data, environmental conditions, and publicly reported metrics – to produce more accurate and interpretable representations of water use. A central requirement of this effort is the application of artificial intelligence and machine learning techniques to enhance data transparency, improve traceability, and identify sources of bias or uncertainty within existing datasets. Potential areas of research include quantifying water reuse from onsite or municipal wastewater treatment facilities, characterizing self-supplied withdrawals from wells, reservoirs, or rivers, and evaluating how seasonal variability influences industrial water demand.
Proposed methodologies should be scalable, adaptable to different geographic and regulatory contexts, and capable of supporting both national level assessments and localized decision making. Approaches must account for the variability in industrial processes, cooling technologies, water supply conditions, and the potential for alternative water sources such as reclaimed water or self-supplied withdrawals. Proposers should also incorporate strategies for validating results against independent or ground truth data and for capturing temporal dynamics, including seasonal fluctuations in water use. Proposals must articulate clear performance metrics, describe anticipated data needs and limitations, and outline how their methods will improve upon current practices used by utilities, regulators, and industry stakeholders.
The selected awardee will work collaboratively with federal partners, local utilities, regional planning bodies, and industry representatives to ensure that the resulting methodologies are practical, credible, and aligned with real world information needs. Engagement with these stakeholders should inform the design and refinement of analytical approaches, support the interpretation of results, and help identify pathways for long term adoption. The final deliverables should provide a robust, transparent framework for observing and communicating industrial water use – including reuse, self-supply, and seasonal variability – enabling communities and decisionmakers to better understand the implications of datacenter growth and other public supply dependent industries.
Request for 104g PFAS proposals
The challenges and opportunities of understanding the effects of per-and polyfluoroalkyl (PFAS) substances on water resources are poorly understood, despite the real and growing effect of this group of man-made substances on water quality and the resultant exposure to humans, other organisms, and ecosystems. Research is needed to better understand these interactions and guide management decisions that will improve water resources at the regional or national scale.
Proposals are sought on the following specific areas of inquiry (levels of priority are not assigned, and the order of listing does not indicate the level of priority):
- Media-specific methods: Enhanced methods for detection on specific media, with a clear indication of new or different compounds, new or different methodological approaches (such as non-target analysis (NTA) or suspect screening, proxies, surrogates), lower detection levels for specific media or compounds, especially with respect to EPA health guidelines for PFOA (Perfluorooctanoic Acid) and PFOS (Perfluorooctane Sulfonate).
- Media of interest include (in ranked order) (1) Tissues/plasma, (2) sediment, (3) air or interfaces, (4) water.
- Atmospheric sources: Improved understanding of atmospheric exchange in PFAS distribution and fate. This may include methods to determine transport of PFAS to the atmosphere and to subsequent receiving waters, such as a water method that determines "new" compounds based on their likelihood to occur in the atmosphere.
- Processes oriented at molecular level, physical or biological: Process-oriented research of PFAS fate, transport, and effects, with emphasis on molecular-level understanding of PFAS precursor transformation, sorption dynamics, or mechanisms of bioaccumulation and(or) biological/ecological effects, or biodegradation of PFAS along source to receptor pathways and identification of mitigation methods and engage modeling and forecasting processes for prediction, prevention, and mitigation of environmental risk of exposure to PFAS in ecosystems and human population.