NSF Engines Development Award: Leveraging innovations for water and energy security (NM, TX)

This Regional Innovation Engines Development Award aims to design an innovation ecosystem producing resilient and sustainable solutions at the nexus of clean water and clean energy. Water scarcity is the defining challenge in the southwestern US, and globally, drylands cover 41% of the land surface, supporting 38% of the human population. Water is life, and the proposed region (encompassing the Navajo Nation, New Mexico, and far west Texas) has the highest household water insecurity in the nation.

Approximately one-third of all Navajo families and dozens of communities near the Mexico border lack piped water or adequate sanitation. Regionally, ~78% of people rely on groundwater for drinking water, but large supplies of water are unusable without treatment, including saline water and water contaminated by industry, agriculture, and military facilities.

Gaining access to clean water requires energy for hauling, piping, pumping, and cleaning it. Innovation closing the large gap between the regional potential for clean energy and the realized capacity to meet regional needs for clean water will also address economic and climate needs by developing a broad and highly skilled workforce while transitioning to the region to clean energy.

The project team will co-create solutions with underserved communities and incorporate indigenous knowledge with a holistic approach that will lead the invention and commercialization of technologies that maximize resilience and bring clean water to every tap, decarbonized power to every door, and a diverse, inclusive, and vibrant economy to the region.

The proposed innovation ecosystem represents a partnership of 2- and 4-year higher education institutions, national laboratories, community groups, government organizations, and both for-profit and non-profit companies in a region of exceptional cultural diversity with 48% identifying as Hispanic and 10% as Native American across 23 tribes. Communities in the region experience high economic distress, exceeding the national average of 13% living in poverty, with New Mexico (NM) and El Paso County at ~19%, and Navajo Nation at a staggering 33%.

To help lift communities out of poverty and launch development of essential infrastructure, project activities are designed around holistic community-engaged projects that emphasize regional strategic economic development imperatives: alignment with stakeholders in a collective, representative ecosystem, expanded capacity for techno-economic development initiatives in rural and tribal communities, preparation of a skilled workforce to enable renewable energy transitions and solutions to water scarcity, and new bridges between industry and technological experts. Community engagement efforts will include Tribal led “learning tours” to help ecosystem members integrate Native perspectives and knowledge into all clean water and clean energy projects.

Use-inspired research efforts will develop plans for a network of integrated water/energy resilience testbeds for four topics: clean water, clean energy, integrated water/energy resilience, and maps & models of unconventional water resources. Workforce development efforts will strengthen the coalition of community colleges through shared comprehensive training programs, and entrepreneurship will be expanded by building upon programs that are tailored to meet the unique cultural needs of different communities, ensuring inclusivity and relevance.

This Development Award will enable the team to engage in a regional, collaborative planning process to prepare a future Engine to meet the above goals.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.