ANS is committed to advancing, fostering, and promoting the development and application of nuclear sciences and technologies to benefit society.
Explore the many uses for nuclear science and its impact on energy, the environment, healthcare, food, and more.
Explore membership for yourself or for your organization.
Conference Spotlight
Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
Standards Program
The Standards Committee is responsible for the development and maintenance of voluntary consensus standards that address the design, analysis, and operation of components, systems, and facilities related to the application of nuclear science and technology. Find out What’s New, check out the Standards Store, or Get Involved today!
Latest Magazine Issues
Sep 2025
Jan 2025
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
September 2025
Nuclear Technology
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.
H. Kido, M. Nemoto, K. Tomita, N. Kurosawa, H. Kimura, H. Yasuda
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 60 | Number 4 | November 2011 | Pages 1272-1275
Environmental and Organically Bound Tritium | Proceedings of the Ninth International Conference on Tritium Science and Technology (Part 2) | doi.org/10.13182/FST11-A12662
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The Rokkasho Reprocessing Plant, located in northeastern Aomori prefecture, is currently undergoing the final commissioning test using actual spent nuclear fuels (the Active Test). Tritium had been discharged from the reprocessing plant and some effects to the environment were observed since the Active Test had been started at the reprocessing plant on March 31, 2006. The purpose of this study is to predict the environmental impact of the reprocessing plant once it becomes operational. An atmospheric dispersion simulation system, developed by the authors, has been utilized to predict the expected tritium dispersion during the plant future operations. In this study, a simulation of tritium dispersion was carried out using wind velocities and wind directions as prediction factors for future HTO activity. The simulation results were compared with actual HTO activity measurements taken during the autumn of 2006 and the spring and autumn of 2007. The results of the simulation appear to accurately reflect the actual measured results from HTO measurements in the autumn seasons of both 2006 and 2007, however, there were discrepancies between the data set from the spring of 2007 and predicted results formulated by the simulation for that same period.
