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Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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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.
G. H. Miley, B. Ulmen, L. Wu, H. Momota, H. Hora, P. J. Shrestha
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 60 | Number 2 | August 2011 | Pages 620-624
Alternate Concepts & Magnets | Proceedings of the Nineteenth Topical Meeting on the Technology of Fusion Energy (TOFE) (Part 2) | doi.org/10.13182/FST11-A12452
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The design basis for a possible near-term driven subcritical assembly for student labs using a cylindrical Inertial Electrostatic Confinement (IEC) fusion neutron source is described. The rebirth of nuclear fission power is going to require a new generation of training facilities for students. The IEC driven subcritical provides a very versatile facility for such training. The IEC source can provide various neutron wave forms (pulses, sinusoidal ramp, etc.) by varying the applied voltage. This opens up an important class of dynamic experiments for student lab study. Driven subcritical operation also eases regulatory requirements and limitations on core configuration changes needed in various student experiments while also introducing the student to the important fusion-fission reactor concept. The possibility of employing the IEC source for future fusion-fission reactors is also briefly discussed.
