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Fusion Science and Technology
August 2025
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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.
S. Kitajima, H. Takahashi, Y. Tanaka, H. Utoh, M. Takenaga, M. Yokoyama, S. Inagaki, Y. Suzuki, K. Nishimura, H. Ogawa, J. Shinde, M. Ogawa, H. Aoyama, K. Iwazaki, A. Okamoto, K. Shinto, M. Sasao
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 50 | Number 2 | August 2006 | Pages 201-206
Technical Paper | Stellarators | doi.org/10.13182/FST06-A1236
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The influence of the low-order rational surface (n,m) = (5,3) on ion viscosity and radial electric field formation were investigated by electrode current sweep biasing with a hot cathode at the Tohoku University Heliac. In the improved mode, the position of the maximum electric field remained on the n/m = 5/3 rational surface. After the H-L transition, the local maxima shifted outward to the plasma periphery of ~ 0.8. The low-order magnetic islands were formed resonating the magnetic Fourier components of (n,m) = (5,3) by external perturbation coils. As the widths of the magnetic islands were increased, the biasing electrode current required for the improved mode transition increased. It was suggested that the ion viscosity increased according to the increase in magnetic island width. The increase in the biasing electrode current is equivalent to the increase in the driving force for the poloidal rotation. This suggests the possibility of an active viscosity control assisted by externally controlled island width and magnetic island rotation.