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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
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.
International High Level Radioactive Waste Management (IHLRWM 2025)
Technical Session
Monday, November 10, 2025|3:15–5:00PM EST|Room 1
Session Chair:
Sylvia J. Saltzstein
Alternate Chair:
Emily R. Stein
Session Organizer:
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An Empirical Approach to Disposal Tunnel Design and Sealing in Neogene Sedimentary Rocks
3:15–3:35PM EST
Akira Hayano (JAEA), Kazuhei Aoyagi (JAEA), Hiroaki Murakami (JAEA), Shun Kimura (JAEA)
Paper
An Overview of a Full-scale Construction Experiment for the Tunnel Sealing Technology at Horonobe URL
3:35–3:55PM EST
Shun Kimura (Horonobe Underground Research Center, Japan Atomic Energy Agency), Akira Hayano (Horonobe Underground Research Center, Japan Atomic Energy Agency), Makoto Ono (TAISEI CORPORATION)
Using Laboratory and Field Tests and the Corresponding Modeling Work to Study the Evolution of Bentonite Buffer under High Temperature
3:55–4:15PM EST
Liange Zheng (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory), Chun Chang (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory), Radhavi Samarakoon (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory), Jens T. Birkholzer (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory)
Refined Model in Near-field: Quarter Waste Package Shale Near-Field Model
4:15–4:35PM EST
Eduardo Basurto (Sandia), Tara LaForce (Sandia), Laura P. Swiler (Sandia)
Energy Recovery from Storage and Disposal Facilities for High-Level Nuclear Waste
4:35–4:55PM EST
Dauren Sarsenbayev (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Haruko M. Wainwright (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
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