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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. Smolentsev, N. B. Morley, M. Abdou
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 50 | Number 1 | July 2006 | Pages 107-119
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/FST06-A1226
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
In the dual-coolant lead lithium (DCLL) blanket, the key element is the flow channel insert (FCI) made of a silicon carbide composite (SiCf /SiC), which serves as electric and thermal insulator. The most important magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) and thermal issues of the FCI, associated with MHD flows and heat transfer in the poloidal channel of the blanket, were studied with numerical simulations using the U.S. DEMO DCLL design as a prototype. The mathematical model includes the two-dimensional momentum and induction equations for a fully developed flow and the three-dimensional (3-D) energy equation. Two FCI modifications, one with no pressure equalization openings and one with a pressure equalization slot, have been considered. The computations were performed in a parametric form, using the electric and thermal conductivity of the SiCf /SiC as parameters. Under the DEMO reactor conditions, parameters of the FCI have been identified that result in low MHD pressure drop and low heat leakage from the breeder into the helium flows. This paper also discusses the role of the pressure equalization openings, 3-D flow effects, and the effect of SiCf /SiC anisotropy.
