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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.
D. Rapisarda, B. Zurro, V. Tribaldos, A. Baciero, TJ-II Team
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 50 | Number 2 | August 2006 | Pages 320-325
Technical Paper | Stellarators | doi.org/10.13182/FST06-A1253
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A local model capable of simulating the cord-integrated emission of spectral lines in the TJ-II stellarator has been developed for inferring local parameters. The procedure was implemented on a numerical code, which starting from given analytical profiles of local emissivity, ion temperature, and toroidal rotation calculates the cord-integrated emission spectra along a selected line of sight. Additionally, the procedure is capable of simulating the toroidal and poloidal velocity contributions for a selected spectral line taking into account TJ-II magnetic topology. Results show good agreement between measurements and numerical simulations for the integrated intensity and ion temperature, and a consistent integrated toroidal rotation velocity, which depends on the emissivity profile.
