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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!
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Sep 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, November 12, 2025|10:15AM–12:00PM EST|Room 15
Session Chair:
Ahmed Amin Abdelhameed
Alternate Chair:
Ishita Trivedi
Session Organizer:
Zeyun Wu
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Development of the Sodium-cooled Thermal-spectrum Advanced Research Test Reactor (STARTR) Model
10:15–10:35AM EST
Travis Lange (Idaho National Laboratory), Thomas Folk (Idaho National Laboratory - National Reactor Innovation Center)
Paper
Comparison of the Reactivity Model to a Jump in Equilibrium Method for Micro-Pebble-Bed High Temperature Gas Cooled Reactors
10:35–10:55AM EST
Donald L. Doyle (University of Tennessee), Nicholas R. Brown (University of Tennessee Knoxville)
Flux Decomposition in a Molten Salt Reactor
10:55–11:15AM EST
Sree Gudala (University of Texas at Austin), Benjamin Collins (The University of Texas at Austin), Kevin Clarno (The University of Texas at Austin)
Enhanced Neutronics Analysis of HFIR LEU Optimized Fuel Design via Improved PHAME Framework
11:15–11:35AM EST
Yves Robert (Oak Ridge National Laboratory)
Impact of Spatial Mesh Resolution on Beryllium Poison Production and End-of-Cycle Reactivity in HFIR
11:35–11:55AM EST
Kevin Burg (Oak Ridge National Laboratory), David Chandler (ORNL), Donny Hartanto (ORNL)
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