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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.
S. Grünhagen, P. D. Brennan, S. Knipe, R. Stagg, J. Yorkshades, JET-EFDA Contributors
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 60 | Number 3 | October 2011 | Pages 931-936
Measurement, Monitoring, and Accountancy | Proceedings of the Ninth International Conference on Tritium Science and Technology | doi.org/10.13182/FST11-A12568
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The JET Active Gas Handling System (AGHS) analytical glovebox contains a custom built Gas Chromatography (GC) system and an Omegatron Mass Spectrometer. The equipment is primarily used to determine the purity of the hydrogen isotopes recovered and separated by the AGHS.Another application is to analyse the composition of the torus exhaust gas to identify and quantify all compounds including hydrocarbons generated during plasma operation. The installed GC system could only measure hydrocarbons up to propane, hence a new system was added: a Micro Gas Chromatograph, capable of analysing mixtures of hydrocarbons up to decane.Results of the analyses of hydrocarbons at the end of the carbon wall campaign with the new Micro GC are presented in this paper.
