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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.
Sebahattin Ünalan, S. Orhan Akansu, Hanifi Saraç
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 43 | Number 2 | March 2003 | Pages 230-249
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/FST03-A263
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
In an inertial fusion energy (IFE) reactor of 1000-MW(electric) fusion power, 95% flibe and 5% fuel with DRc thickness instead of 100% flibe are used. At startup, the tritium breeding ratio and M-blanket energy multiplication ratio are 1.05 and 1.26 for UF4 and DRc [approximately equal to] 60 cm, respectively. These values increase during an operation period of 30 yr. In 11 yr, M increases from 1.26 to 2 [= 2000 MW(electric)]. After operation of 11 yr, the energy production is stabilized by means of separation of produced plutonium. After 30 yr, displacement per atom (dpa) and helium production in the first wall are calculated as 92 dpa and 590 ppm, respectively. In addition, the cost of electricity values of the HYLIFE-II and the improved HYLIFE-II of 2000 MW(electric) drop from 4.5 and 3.2 ¢/kWh to 4.18 and 3.00 ¢/kWh, respectively. On the other hand, the IFE reactor has the fissile fuel breeding potential of 70 tonnes. The fissile fuel of 45 tonnes corresponding to [approximately equal to]2350 kg/yr would be sufficient to provide makeup fuel for [approximately equal to]10 light water reactors after 11 yr. After the shutdown process, 25 tonnes of fissile fuel with fuel enrichment of 23% would be left over.
