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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.
Georges Bonheure, Elisabeth Wieslander, Mikael Hult, Joël Gasparro, Gerd Marissens, Dirk Arnold, Matthias Laubenstein, Sergei Popovichev, Andrea Murari, Igor Lengar, JET-EFDA Contributors
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 53 | Number 3 | April 2008 | Pages 806-815
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/FST53-806
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Measurements of mega-electron-volt charged-particle losses in the JET tokamak are reported. The technique is based on sample activation by nuclear reaction from mega-electron-volt particles. Samples are used as flux monitors for leaking fusion plasma particles in the mega-electron-volt energy range. Ultra-low-level gamma-ray measurements were performed at three underground facilities in order to significantly enhance detection levels. Two measured radionuclides (48V and 7Be) were identified as produced predominantly from charged-particle reactions. Quantitative data on charged-particle fluxes to the wall were obtained for the first time as well as angular distribution with respect to the magnetic field.