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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.
S. W. Haan, M. C. Herrmann, P. A. Amendt, D. A. Callahan, T. R. Dittrich, M. J. Edwards, O. S. Jones, M. M. Marinak, D. H. Munro, S. M. Pollaine, J. D. Salmonson, B. K. Spears, L. J. Suter
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 49 | Number 4 | May 2006 | Pages 553-557
Technical Paper | Target Fabrication | doi.org/10.13182/FST49-553
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Targets intended to produce ignition on NIF are being simulated and the simulations are used to set specifications for target fabrication. Recent design work has focused on designs that assume only 1.0 MJ of laser energy instead of the previous 1.6 MJ. To perform with less laser energy, the hohlraum has been redesigned to be more efficient than previously, and the capsules are slightly smaller. The main-line hohlraum design now has a SiO2 foam fill, a wall of U-Dy-Au, and shields mounted between the capsule and the laser entrance holes. Two capsule designs are being considered. One has a layered Cu-doped Be ablator, and the other layered Ge-doped CH. Both can perform acceptably with recently demonstrated ice layer quality, and with recently demonstrated outer surface roughness. Smoothness of the internal interfaces may be an issue for the Be(Cu) design, and it may be necessary either to polish partially coated shells or to improve process control so that the internal layers are smoother. Complete tables of specifications are being prepared for both targets, to be completed this fiscal year. All the specifications are being rolled together into an error budget indicating adequate margin for ignition with the new designs.