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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.
M. S. Ladygina, I. E. Garkusha, A. K. Marchenko, V. A. Makhlai, M. J. Sadowski, E. Skladnik-Sadowska, N. N. Aksenov, V. I. Tereshin
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 60 | Number 1 | July 2011 | Pages 27-33
doi.org/10.13182/FST11-A12401
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
This report presents the results of experimental studies of powerful plasma impacts upon tungsten and carbon surfaces, which are ITER relevant Plasma Facing Materials (PFMs). The simulation experiments were carried out with a QSPA Kh-50 (Quasi-Stationary Plasma Accelerator) in Kharkov Institute of Physics and Technology (Ukraine) and an RPI-IBIS (Multi-Rod Plasma Injector) facility in the Andrzej Soltan Institute for Nuclear Studies (IPJ) Swierk (Poland).QSPA Kh-50 generates hydrogen plasma streams of duration of 0.25 ms and the heat loads in the range of 0.2–2.5 MJ/m2, which correspond to the Edge Localized Modes (ELM) impacts expected in ITER. The plasma stream diameter is 18 cm, averaged ion energy is about 0.4 keV, and the maximum plasma pressure achieves 3.2 bar. Due to that fact, using the QSPA Kh-50 it is possible to simulate ITER transient events. Deuterium plasma streams with power density of 10-50 W/m2 and pulse duration of 1-5 s, generated by RPI-IBIS were used for comparative studies and determination of an initial stage of evaporated impurities dynamics during plasma-surface interactions as well as features of surface damages appearing under varied plasma parameters.In order to determinate the main plasma parameters (an electron density and temperature) and to study of impurities behavior at the time of discharge the use was made of optical spectroscopy methods. The onset of a vapor shield in front of the target surface was investigated in dependence on a surface heat load for tungsten (W) and carbon (C) targets. Information about dynamics of the W- and C-ions production was obtained.Some issues of the droplet splashing at the tungsten surfaces and the formation of hot spots upon the graphite surface, which can be sources of the enhanced evaporation, are also discussed.
