Rice is a partner in the National Alliance for Water Innovation (NAWI), a consortium that won a five-year, $100 million Department of Energy award to establish an Energy-Water Desalination Hub that addresses U.S. water security issues.

NAWI, which includes four national laboratories, 19 universities and 10 industry partners and more than 200 affiliates, is led by and headquartered at DOE’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, California.NAWI will focus on early-stage research and development for energy-efficient and cost-competitive desalination technologies and for treating nontraditional water sources for various uses.

The alliance’s goal is to advance technologies that will secure a circular water economy in which 90% of nontraditional water sources — such as seawater, brackish water and produced water from industry and agriculture — can be cost-competitive with existing water sources within 10 years.

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