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August 2025
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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.
Huguet M, Author No. 1, Bertolini E, Author No. 2,
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 10 | Number 3 | November 1986 | Pages 1386-1397
Machine Upgrades and Next-Generation Device | doi.org/10.13182/FST86-A24923
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
One of the main objectives of the JET experiment is to reach near ignition conditions using deuterium-tritium mixtures so that significant heating of the plasma by alpha particles is achieved. This objective is reflected in the JET development plan which aims at one or two years of active operation and a few thousand deuterium-tritium shots. This approach, where it is believed that a sustained active operation period is necessary for a meaningful study of alpha particle heating, has had considerable design and cost implications on the whole project. The paper first reviews the impact of the active phase on the general design concepts and detailed design of the machine. Buildings, auxilliary systems, power supplies and diagnostics have also been strongly influenced by requirements resulting from the activation of the machine or the use of tritium. The paper reviews also the development programme which is being pursued vigorously in the areas of remote handling and tritium recycling, in readiness for the active phase. An evaluation of the cost of all facilities implemented for the active phase in relation to the overall project cost is also presented.
