# Pranava Raparla

> AI infrastructure, energy policy, and federal permitting: data tools and dashboards across compute, energy, and governance.

Pranava Raparla is a technologist and policy practitioner. Former Microsoft PM and DOE Presidential Innovation Fellow.

Website: https://www.pranavaraparla.com
GitHub: https://github.com/pranava0x0
LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/pranavaraparla
Presidential Innovation Fellows: https://presidentialinnovationfellows.gov/fellows/pranava-raparla/

## About

Pranava Raparla is a Senior Program Advisor at the U.S. Department of Energy, where he leads the Data Center Engagement Team, builds AI tools for environmental review and permitting, and works on AI policy for science and international partnerships. He came to the department as a Presidential Innovation Fellow; before that he was a product manager at Microsoft working on performance, battery life, and sustainability for apps and silicon.

The projects below are personal side projects, not the work of any employer. Each one starts with a policy question and ends with a working tool; most are static sites with public source code.

## Projects and Questions

- [Plant Tracker](https://www.pranavaraparla.com/plant-tracker-case-study.html): Plant Tracker (in-app: Plant Health — Track & Nurture ) bets that the camera is the only interface a plant app actually needs. Add a plant by photographing it, and the system identifies the species, reads its condition, and generates a care schedule — watering, light, feeding... | Last updated: 2026-08-09
- [Deployment Core](https://www.pranavaraparla.com/nucleardeployment-case-study.html): New-design nuclear is having a headline moment: tens of thousands of announced megawatts, criticality milestones, billion-dollar raises. Deployment Core cuts through that by scoring the race in evidence. | [Live](https://www.pranavaraparla.com/nucleardeployment/) | [Code](https://github.com/pranava0x0/nucleardeployment) | Last updated: 2026-08-09
- [PPA Helper](https://www.pranavaraparla.com/PPAhelper-case-study.html): PPA Helper teaches the mechanics by making you run them: change the market, watch who pays whom each period, and read real clauses with a definition one tap away. PPAs finance much of the new power on the grid and let big buyers — increasingly data centers — lock in a price for... | [Live](https://www.pranavaraparla.com/PPAhelper/) | [Code](https://github.com/pranava0x0/PPAhelper) | Last updated: 2026-08-09
- [FirstPassRx](https://www.pranavaraparla.com/FirstPassRx-case-study.html): FirstPassRx answers one narrow question: for this plan and this kind of prescription, which agent does the formulary already prefer, so the first script goes through clean? | [Live](https://www.pranavaraparla.com/FirstPassRx/) | [Code](https://github.com/pranava0x0/FirstPassRx) | Last updated: 2026-08-09
- [Vibe Coding Security](https://www.pranavaraparla.com/vibe-coding-security-case-study.html): This is a dated, sourced tracker of the attacks that actually hit people shipping with Cursor, Claude Code, Lovable, v0, Bolt, and Replit — each incident paired with a recovery playbook, so the gap between "compromised" and "noticed" is hours instead of weeks. | [Live](https://www.pranavaraparla.com/vibe-coding-security/) | [Code](https://github.com/pranava0x0/vibe-coding-security) | Last updated: 2026-08-09
- [Fantasy GM](https://www.pranavaraparla.com/FantasyGM-case-study.html): Fantasy GM answers both, for every team in the league: here's your biggest positional gap, and here are the free agents who close it. ESPN hands you raw projections but won't tell you that you're stacked at guard and thin in the frontcourt, or which available player fixes that. | [Live](https://www.pranavaraparla.com/FantasyGM/) | [Code](https://github.com/pranava0x0/FantasyGM) | Last updated: 2026-08-09
- [DryDock](https://www.pranavaraparla.com/DryDock-case-study.html): DryDock started life as a lightweight deployment framework — "a shipyard for containerized apps." Then the agents moved in. It's now an orchestration platform: type a prompt on your phone, and a Claude Code or Gemini CLI subprocess spins up on the Mac, works inside an isolated... | [Code](https://github.com/pranava0x0/DryDock) | Last updated: 2026-08-08
- [Robotics Industry & Policy Tracker](https://www.pranavaraparla.com/roboticsleadership-case-study.html): The tracker puts funding rounds, federal and state legislation, and the state-by-state policy picture side by side, under one rule: every number points back to a primary source or it doesn't go in. The short version of what it shows is that the U.S. | [Live](https://www.pranavaraparla.com/roboticsleadership/) | [Code](https://github.com/pranava0x0/roboticsleadership) | Last updated: 2026-08-05
- [Data Center Water Usage](https://www.pranavaraparla.com/datacenterwaterusage-case-study.html): This dashboard puts operator water claims next to the permits, discharge reports, and enforcement files that can check them. It covers Virginia and Ohio, two of the densest data-center markets in the country. | [Live](https://www.pranavaraparla.com/datacenterwaterusage/) | [Code](https://github.com/pranava0x0/datacenterwaterusage) | Last updated: 2026-08-05
- [Brownfield Opportunities](https://www.pranavaraparla.com/brownfield-opportunities-case-study.html): This dashboard maps ~46,800 federally-tracked contaminated sites and scores each one on how close it sits to the transmission, generation, water, and transport a build actually needs. The same proximity that suits energy redevelopment also suits AI and data-center load growth. | [Live](https://www.pranavaraparla.com/brownfield-opportunities/) | [Code](https://github.com/pranava0x0/brownfield-opportunities) | Last updated: 2026-08-05
- [Data Center Community Benefits](https://www.pranavaraparla.com/datacentercommunitybenefits-case-study.html): This catalogs what operators have publicly committed to host communities — and what those commitments look like once a campus is running. That gap is leverage. A county negotiating its first data-center agreement can see the community funds, renewable microgrids, and... | [Live](https://www.pranavaraparla.com/datacentercommunitybenefits/) | [Code](https://github.com/pranava0x0/datacentercommunitybenefits) | Last updated: 2026-08-04
- [FERC Large Load Orders](https://www.pranavaraparla.com/FERC-Orders-June-2026-case-study.html): This microsite is the whole regulatory arc in one place, with every displayed directive quoted verbatim and page-linked to the order it came from. On October 23, 2025 DOE invoked its rarely used Section 403 authority to direct FERC to open a rulemaking on large-load... | [Live](https://www.pranavaraparla.com/FERC-Orders-June-2026/) | [Code](https://github.com/pranava0x0/FERC-Orders-June-2026) | Last updated: 2026-08-04
- [Settle](https://settle-ochre-eight.vercel.app): An app that ends group chat arguments once and for all. No appeals allowed. | [Code](https://github.com/pranava0x0/settle) | Last updated: 2026-08-03
- [FERC Form 1 Audit Explorer](https://www.pranavaraparla.com/FERCforms-case-study.html): This explorer reads 71 FERC audit reports as one body of evidence instead of 71 separate PDFs. It shows which findings of noncompliance keep recurring, what FERC recommends about them, and how that differs between financial (FA) and non-financial (PA) audits. | [Live](https://www.pranavaraparla.com/FERCforms/) | [Code](https://github.com/pranava0x0/FERCforms) | Last updated: 2026-07-16
- [Keeper](https://github.com/pranava0x0/keeper): A collaborative, low-friction tool designed to help families organize elder care and daily check-ins. | [Code](https://github.com/pranava0x0/keeper) | Last updated: 2026-07-16
- [ShirtPost](https://www.pranavaraparla.com/shirtpost/): Print-on-demand fast-fashion for family-friendly internet trends: a trend radar, a human-approval studio, and an automated Printful + X factory. | [Code](https://github.com/pranava0x0/shirtpost) | Last updated: 2026-07-13
- [BubbleBook](https://github.com/pranava0x0/bubblebook): A storybook maker for parents and toddlers — tap a character, and Claude writes and illustrates a 3–5 page board book you read together. | [Code](https://github.com/pranava0x0/bubblebook) | Last updated: 2026-07-11
- [Vision Zero DC Crash Map](https://www.pranavaraparla.com/VisionZeroDC-case-study.html): DC launched Vision Zero in 2015 promising zero traffic deaths by 2024, and missed. This tool scores that against the city's own baseline — deaths, and people killed or seriously injured — then maps where the harm concentrates, ward by ward and intersection by intersection. | [Live](https://www.pranavaraparla.com/VisionZeroDC/) | [Code](https://github.com/pranava0x0/VisionZeroDC) | Last updated: 2026-07-10
- [DC Elections Tracker](https://www.pranavaraparla.com/dcelectionstracker-case-study.html): This tracker keeps every DC race — candidates, campaign finance, and week-to-week momentum — in one readable place, refreshed nightly. Local races have outsized effects on federal policy, urban planning, and infrastructure, but the volume of candidates and finance filings makes... | [Live](https://www.pranavaraparla.com/dcelectionstracker/) | [Code](https://github.com/pranava0x0/dcelectionstracker) | Last updated: 2026-07-07
- [Virginia Budget Explorer](https://www.pranavaraparla.com/virginia-budget-explorer/): A source-verified static dashboard of Virginia's general-fund budget — every figure and quote is validated verbatim against its official source document, and the build fails if a number drifts. | [Code](https://github.com/pranava0x0/virginia-budget-explorer) | Last updated: 2026-07-06
- [USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries](https://www.pranavaraparla.com/usgs-mineral-commodity-summaries-case-study.html): This viewer makes the USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries readable across commodities instead of one PDF at a time: net import reliance for any material, which countries those imports come from, and what USGS itself flags under "Events, Trends & Issues" — every figure traceable to... | [Live](https://www.pranavaraparla.com/usgs-mineral-commodity-summaries/) | [Code](https://github.com/pranava0x0/usgs-mineral-commodity-summaries) | Last updated: 2026-06-02
- [Days Since Last Blunder](https://www.pranavaraparla.com/dayssincelastblunder/): A brutally honest, zero-dependency tracker of consecutive days without a catastrophic mistake. | [Code](https://github.com/pranava0x0/dayssincelastblunder) | Last updated: 2026-05-22
- [Rate My Pupusa](https://ratemypupusa.vercel.app): The definitive crowdsourced rating platform for local pupusas. A serious culinary endeavor. | [Code](https://github.com/pranava0x0/ratemypupusa) | Last updated: 2026-05-12
- [Taco Bell DC 50K](https://www.pranavaraparla.com/TBDC50K/): The official tracker for the completely unofficial Taco Bell DC 50k ultra-marathon. | [Code](https://github.com/pranava0x0/TBDC50K) | Last updated: 2026-04-15
- [Iran Infrastructure Tracker](https://www.pranavaraparla.com/iran-infrastructure-tracker/): What is the current state and progression of critical infrastructure in Iran? | [Code](https://github.com/pranava0x0/iran-infrastructure-tracker) | Last updated: 2026-04-07
- [USCBP Trade Tracker](https://www.pranavaraparla.com/uscbp-trade-tracker/): How are trade volumes and enforcement actions trending at U.S. borders? | [Code](https://github.com/pranava0x0/uscbp-trade-tracker) | Last updated: 2026-03-25
- [US Tech Prosperity Deals Tracker](https://www.pranavaraparla.com/us-tpd-tracker/): What is the scope, status, and impact of U.S. Tech Prosperity Deals? | [Code](https://github.com/pranava0x0/us-tpd-tracker) | Last updated: 2026-02-24

## Press Releases

- [Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and OpenAI partner to accelerate federal permitting](https://openai.com/index/pacific-northwest-national-laboratory/) (OpenAI, February 26, 2026)
- [Energy Department Seeks Proposals for AI Data Centers, Energy Projects at Paducah Site](https://www.energy.gov/em/articles/us-energy-department-seeks-proposals-ai-data-centers-energy-projects-paducah-site) (Department of Energy, November 4, 2025)
- [Energy Department Seeks Proposals for AI Data Centers, Energy Projects at Oak Ridge](https://www.energy.gov/em/articles/us-energy-department-seeks-proposals-ai-data-centers-energy-projects-oak-ridge) (Department of Energy, September 30, 2025)
- [NNSA Seeks Proposals for AI Data Centers, Energy Projects at Savannah River Site](https://www.energy.gov/nnsa/articles/nnsa-seeks-proposals-ai-data-centers-energy-projects-savannah-river-site-0) (Department of Energy, September 30, 2025)
- [Energy Department Seeks Proposals for AI Data Centers, Energy Projects at Idaho National Laboratory](https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/energy-department-seeks-proposals-ai-data-centers-energy-projects-idaho-national) (Department of Energy, September 8, 2025)
- [PermitAI Ushers in a New Era for Faster, Better Federal Permitting](https://www.pnnl.gov/news-media/permitai-ushers-new-era-faster-better-federal-permitting) (PNNL News Release, August 21, 2025)
- [PNNL PermitAI NEPATECv2 Public Release](https://www.pnnl.gov/sites/default/files/media/file/PNNL_PermitAI_NEPATECv2_Public_Release_20_08_25.pdf) (PNNL Report, August 20, 2025)
- [DOE Announces Site Selection for AI Data Center and Energy Infrastructure Development on Federal Lands](https://www.energy.gov/articles/doe-announces-site-selection-ai-data-center-and-energy-infrastructure-development-federal) (Department of Energy, July 24, 2025)
- [Faster, Better Permitting with PermitAI](https://www.energy.gov/policy/articles/faster-better-permitting-permitai) (Department of Energy, July 10, 2025)
- [Presidential Innovation Fellows: Pranava Raparla](https://presidentialinnovationfellows.gov/fellows/pranava-raparla/) (Presidential Innovation Fellows, GSA, 2023)

## Media, Publications, and Talks

- [DraftNEPABench: A Benchmark for Drafting NEPA Document Sections with Coding Agents](https://www.pnnl.gov/sites/default/files/media/file/PREPRINT_PNNL_PolicyAI_DraftNEPABench_OpenAI.pdf) (PNNL / PolicyAI, February 2026)
- [How a national lab is using data and AI to try to speed up permitting](https://www.nextgov.com/artificial-intelligence/2025/08/how-national-lab-using-data-and-ai-try-speed-permitting/407766/) (Nextgov/FCW, August 2025)
- [Local Environmental Impacts of Data Center Proliferation](https://www.elr.info/articles/elr-articles/local-environmental-impacts-data-center-proliferation) (Co-Author, Environmental Law Review, April 2025)
- [Data Center Proliferation in the US](https://www.erisinfo.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/ERIS_Blog_DataCenter_US_1.2025_F.pdf) (ERIS Information, January 2025)
- [How a national lab is using data and AI to try to speed up permitting](https://www.route-fifty.com/digital-government/2025/08/how-national-lab-using-data-and-ai-try-speed-permitting/407786/) (Quoted, Route Fifty, August 2025)
- [How can Load Growth Supercharge the Energy Transformation?](https://www.deploytogether.com/wp-content/uploads/How-can-Load-Growth-Supercharge-the-Energy-Transformation.pdf) (Deploy Together, 2025)
- [Using NEPA-Customized AI Tools for More Efficient Environmental Permitting](https://www.pnnl.gov/events/using-nepa-customized-ai-tools-more-efficient-environmental-permitting) (PNNL Event, 2025)
- [Sustainable Infrastructure and AI](https://www.anbsystems.com/blog/energize-2025-ai-innovation-collaboration-india/) (Speaker, ANB Systems Energize 2025, January 2025)