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.
Zaixin Li, T. Tanaka, T. Muroga, S. Sato, T. Nishitani
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 52 | Number 4 | November 2007 | Pages 817-820
Technical Paper | Nuclear Analysis and Experiments | doi.org/10.13182/FST07-A1592
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A series of irradiation experiments were performed using Fusion Neutronics Source (FNS) at JAEA for the investigation of activation of materials relevant to Lithium/vanadium-alloy and Flibe/vanadium-alloy blankets. The specimens of V-4Cr-4Ti, Er and Teflon in 10 mm×10 mm×0.03-0.1 mm were prepared for studying the activation of V-alloy structure, MHD coating of Er2O3, and F in molten salt Flibe, respectively. Be, Li and Li/Be mock-ups were assembled with Be and solid Li blocks in addition to the assembly for direct D-T neutron irradiation to examine the dependence of the activation on neutron spectrum. The neutron spectra in all irradiation locations were calculated using MCNP code and JENDL-3.3 file. The activities of the specimens induced in various neutron fields were measured with a high purity Ge detector (HP-Ge). Experimental analyses were carried out using FISPACT-2001 codes with both EAF-2001 file and FENDL/A-2.0 & FENDL/D-2.0 libraries. The typical calculation/experiment (C/E) values lay in the range of 0.8-1.2. Coarse group treat for (n,) reactions, especially in resonance range, could result in overestimation. Use of continuous cross section improves consistency of the calculation with the experiment. However, accurate estimate of spectra is necessary when the flux changes largely with energy around the threshold or the resonance peak.
