Alva is adding over six gigawatts of nuclear capacity through retrofits in under five years. This is the fastest and cheapest nuclear power anyone can get on the grid.

 
 

 

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Robb Stewart

Robb Stewart is the CTO and co-founder of Alva. He is a nuclear engineer specializing in nuclear construction, cost estimation, and power uprates. His methods for estimating costs, construction timelines, and labor requirements for nuclear plants are used internationally. Prior to Alva, Stewart co-founded Boston Atomics, an advanced reactor company developing a construction-optimized small modular reactor. Stewart earned his Ph.D. in nuclear engineering from MIT, and an M.S. and B.S. in mechanical engineering from UT Austin.

 

TECHNOLOGY

 

Critical Need

The fragmented utility landscape precludes learning gained at one nuclear project from scaling to others.

Furthermore, hyperscalers need additional firm, low-carbon power within five years. Nuclear new builds will take much longer.

Technology Vision

Alva is building the first independent nuclear project management and delivery organization (PDMO), built on the structures of the most successful U.S. nuclear builds and advised by their leaders.

To deliver additional nuclear capacity faster than new builds, Alva is starting with the Alva Uprate—an integrated technical, regulatory, and project management solution to add over six gigawatts to the U.S. grid of capacity through uprates within five years.

Potential Impact

Today, nuclear power is the largest source of low-carbon power in the United States, so the installed base is a critical piece of our low-carbon future. When deployed to the U.S. fleet, the Alva Uprate will abate 20+ megatons of CO2 annually and 400-800 megatons over its lifetime. 

Ultimately, we will need to expand the operating base, and after dozens of uprates, Alva’s experienced nuclear projects team will deploy large light water reactors—leading to upwards of 100 megatons of CO2 abated annually.

Twitter

@alvaenergyio

Company Email

robb@alvaenergy.io

Company Website

alvaenergy.io