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.
Sandra J. Brereton, Mujid S. Kazimi
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 10 | Number 2 | September 1986 | Pages 275-289
Technical Paper | Safety/Environmental Aspect | doi.org/10.13182/FST86-A24979
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A methodology is presented that can be used to determine if a proposed fusion power plant design modification, directed at improving plant safety, is cost-effective. Both normal and accident conditions can be handled. An approach for evaluating the maximum justified spending on safety is outlined. The incremental costs involved with a dose reduction measure are identified, and models for their assessment are given. By comparing the spending on the design modification to the justified expenditure ceiling, the cost-effectiveness of the design can be assessed. The utility of this approach is illustrated through two examples. For normal plant conditions, the cost-effectiveness of replacing the steel alloy PCA by low-activation silicon carbide (SiC) in the STARFIRE design is assessed. Based on a specified set of assumptions, it was determined that if the installed cost of SiC components is less than $110/kg, then the low-activation design is cost-effective. The second example illustrates the applicability of the methodology to accident situations. Four emergency detritiation options for the International Tokamak Reactor, using zero, one, two, or three cleanup units, are evaluated. The assessment was based on the release of 25 g of tritium into the reactor building and on several specified assumptions. The analysis indicated that if the probability of the accident occurring exceeds 3.59 × 10−2, the most cost-effective option would be the use of one detritiation unit. For lower probabilities, the use of any cleanup system would not be justified.