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Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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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.
Tim D. Bohm, Laila El-Guebaly, ARIES Team
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 60 | Number 1 | July 2011 | Pages 278-282
In-Vessel Components - FW, Blanket, Shield & VV | Proceedings of the Nineteenth Topical Meeting on the Technology of Fusion Energy (TOFE) (Part 1) | doi.org/10.13182/FST11-A12365
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
In ARIES tokamak designs, there are assembly gaps between adjacent blanket and shield modules. These gaps allow increased levels of radiation to reach outer components. Three-dimensional models of the tokamak were used to analyze the effect of radiation streaming through both straight and stepped gaps of 1 cm and 2 cm wide. We proposed a novel idea of inserting a WC shield block within the double step region to further attenuate the streaming neutrons. Radiation damage parameters were calculated for the inboard components including the first wall, shield, manifolds, vacuum vessel, and magnet. Our results show that straight gaps allow too much radiation to reach the inboard components, resulting in large peaking in radiation damage parameters. The double stepped gap with WC shield block show reduced peaking and are effective at protecting the vacuum vessel and magnet.
