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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.
Mark D. Hoover, Michael D. Allen, Richard B. Simpson, Hsu Chi Yeh
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 10 | Number 3 | November 1986 | Pages 1228-1233
Environment and Safety | doi.org/10.13182/FST86-A24898
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A pulsed Nd:YAG laser is being used to aerosolize material from the surface of metal targets to simulate particles created in fusion energy systems. Targets in the form of rods up to 2-cm diameter can be attached to a screw mechanism that exposes a fresh surface for each laser pulse. Energies up to 20 J/pulse can be applied to the target, at pulse rates from a single shot to 300 Hz. Energy can be focused on an area with diameter less than 500 µm. Stainless steel and aluminum targets were used in a demonstration of system performance. The branched-chain ultrafine aggregate aerosols that were produced appeared to result from direct vaporization/condensation of material from the surface of the target located under the center of the laser beam, and from ejection of molten droplets from the target surface.
