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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.
Roger Raman
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 50 | Number 1 | July 2006 | Pages 84-88
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/FST06-A1223
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Steady-state advanced tokamak (AT) scenarios rely on optimized density and pressure profiles to maximize the bootstrap current fraction. Under this mode of operation, the fueling system must deposit small amounts of fuel where it is needed and as often as needed, so as to compensate for fuel losses, but not to adversely alter the established density and pressure profiles. Conventional fueling methods have not demonstrated successful fueling of AT-type discharges and may be incapable of deep fueling long-pulse edge-localized-mode-free discharges in ITER. The capability to deposit fuel at any desired radial location within the tokamak would provide burn control capability through alteration of the density profile. The ability to peak the density profile would ease ignition requirements, while operating ITER with density profiles that are peaked would increase the fusion power output. An advanced fueling system should also be capable of fueling well past internal transport barriers. Compact toroid (CT) fueling has the potential to meet these needs, while simultaneously providing a source of toroidal momentum input. Experimental data needed for the design of a CT fueler for ITER could be obtained on NSTX using an existing CT injector.