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Conference Spotlight
Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
Standards Program
The Standards Committee is responsible for the development and maintenance of voluntary consensus standards that address the design, analysis, and operation of components, systems, and facilities related to the application of nuclear science and technology. Find out What’s New, check out the Standards Store, or Get Involved today!
Latest Magazine Issues
Sep 2025
Jan 2025
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Nuclear Science and Engineering
September 2025
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
August 2025
Latest News
From operator to entrepreneur: David Garcia applies outage management lessons
David Garcia
If ComEd’s Zion plant in northern Illinois hadn’t closed in 1998, David Garcia might still be there, where he got his start in nuclear power as an operator at age 24.
But in his ninth year working there, Zion closed, and Garcia moved on to a series of new roles—including at Wisconsin’s Point Beach plant, the corporate offices of Minnesota’s Xcel Energy, and on the supplier side at PaR Nuclear—into an on-the-job education that he augmented with degrees in business and divinity that he sought later in life.
Garcia started his own company—Waymaker Resource Group—in 2014. Recently, Waymaker has been supporting Holtec’s restart project at the Palisades plant with staffing and analysis. Palisades sits almost exactly due east of the fully decommissioned Zion site on the other side of Lake Michigan and is poised to operate again after what amounts to an extended outage of more than three years. Holtec also plans to build more reactors at the same site.
For Garcia, the takeaway is clear: “This industry is not going away. Nuclear power and the adjacent industries that support nuclear power—and clean energy, period—are going to be needed for decades upon decades.”
In July, Garcia talked with Nuclear News staff writer Susan Gallier about his career and what he has learned about running successful outages and other projects.
Technical Session|Sponsored by RPD
Wednesday, June 14, 2023|3:15–5:00PM EDT|Michigan/Texas
Session Chair:
Carlo Fiorina
Alternate Chair:
Pavel V. Tsvetkov
Session Organizer:
Massimiliano Fratoni
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OpenFSAM: An Open Source Simulated Annealing Module
3:15–3:35PM EDT
Nicholas F. Herring (NCSU), Yousry Y. Azmy (NCSU)
Paper
Presentation Slides (Visible to Attendees) — OpenFSAM
Optimization of Light Water Reactor Core Design Using a Genetic Algorithm in the RAVEN Framework
3:35–3:55PM EDT
Khang Nguyen (NCSU), Jason Hou (NCSU), Mohammad G. Abdo (INL), Junyung Kim (INL), Congjian Wang (INL), Yong-Joon Choi (INL)
SFR versus LFR Fuel Cycle Cost Comparison
3:55–4:15PM EDT
Khaldoon A. Al-Dawood (NCSU), Scott P. Palmtag (NCSU)
Coupling of Python Optimization Library mlrose and SIMULATE-3 for SMR Core Design
4:15–4:35PM EDT
Noah M. Marks (Univ. Tennessee, Knoxville), G. Ivan Maldonado (Univ. Tennessee, Knoxville)
Pin Power Calculation on BWR Colorset with Machine-Learning-Aided Reactor Physics Simulation
4:35–4:55PM EDT
M.R. Oktavian (Purdue), J. Nistor (Blue Wave AI Labs), J.T. Gruenwald (Blue Wave AI Labs), Y. Xu (Purdue)
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