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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.
K. Takahashi, N. Kobayashi, J. Ohmori, S. Suzuki, A. Kasugai, K. Sakamoto
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 52 | Number 2 | August 2007 | Pages 266-280
Technical Paper | Electron Cyclotron Wave Physics, Technology, and Applications - Part 1 | doi.org/10.13182/FST07-A1506
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Progress on design of an International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) equatorial electron cyclotron launcher with analytical and research and development studies of the components is described. The modified design of the front shield module is proposed with electromagnetic and structure analysis. The analytical investigation of the modified steering mirror design shows that maximum temperature and stress intensity are 289°C and 336 MPa on the mirror surface (copper alloy) and the inner surface of the cooling tube (Type 316 stainless steel) in the mirror, respectively. Maximum stress intensity of the spiral tube to feed cooling water to the steering mirror is calculated to be 139 MPa. These values are less than the allowable level. High heat flux irradiation experiments of the mirror mock-up and fatigue tests of the spiral tube were carried out, and their results proved that the concept of the steering mirror structure was feasible. The results on neutron irradiation tests of the composing materials for an ultrasonic motor and the alternatives such as polyimide and liquid crystal polymer indicate that the motor with those materials is available for the ITER launcher. The remote maintenance scheme of the launcher, which corresponded one-to-one with the fabrication scenario, was also introduced. A "front-access scheme" and a "rear-access scheme" are considered, and their feasibilities are discussed.
