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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.
Advances in Nuclear Nonproliferation Technology and Policy Conference (ANTPC 2025)
Technical Session
Tuesday, November 11, 2025|3:15–5:00PM EST|Room 1
Session Chair:
Brian Raines
Session Organizer:
Alternate Chair:
Chris E. Robinson
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Impact of Burnup Calculation Uncertainty on Material Accounting for Molten Salt Reactors
3:15–3:35PM EST
Thomas Drury (TerraPower, LLC), Eva C. Uribe (TerraPower, LLC)
Paper
Molten Salt Reactor Process Monitoring using Laser and Optical Spectroscopy Techniques
3:35–3:55PM EST
Ammon N. Williams (Idaho National Laboratory), Garrett LeCroy (Idaho National Laboratory), Jessica Meiers (Idaho National Laboratory), Rachelle Austin (Idaho National Laboratory), Ruchi Gakhar (Idaho National Laboratory)
Cumulative Sum (CUSUM) and Machine Learning Methods for Nuclear Material Accountancy
3:55–4:15PM EST
Bindiya Chana (Canadian Nuclear Laboratories), Jude Alexander (Canadian Nuclear Laboratories), Bryan van der Ende (Canadian Nuclear Laboratories)
Spectroscopic Identification and Quantification of Species in Molten Salts
4:15–4:35PM EST
Rachelle Austin (Idaho National Lab), Garrett LeCroy (Idaho National Lab), Ammon N. Williams (Idaho National Lab), Jess Meiers (Idaho National Lab), Alejandro R. Ballesteros (Idaho National Lab), Ruchi Gakhar (Idaho National Lab), Robert Hoover (Idaho National Lab)
Field Testing of Safeguards Technologies in the Hot Fuel Examination Facility
4:35–4:55PM EST
Christopher Gundersen (Idaho National Laboratory), Victoria Davis (Idaho National Laboratory), Ammon N. Williams (Idaho National Laboratory)
Applying Data Enhancements to Improve the Effectiveness of Nuclear Material Accountancy
4:55–5:15PM EST
Elaine Beacom (Link Technologies, Inc. for the U.S. Department of Energy/National Nuclear Security Administration), Robert (. Carbo (Link Technologies, Inc. for the U.S. Department of Energy/National Nuclear Security Administration), Mirabelle Shoemaker (U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission), Genevieve Weaver (Link Technologies, Inc. for the U.S. Department of Energy/National Nuclear Security Administration), Alexandra Zeigler (U.S. Department of Energy/National Nuclear Security Administration)
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