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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.
M. E. Sawan, L. Snead, S. Zinkle
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 44 | Number 1 | July 2003 | Pages 150-154
Technical Paper | Fusion Energy - Fusion Materials | doi.org/10.13182/FST03-A325
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The radiation effects in the fiber, matrix, and interface components of the SiC/SiC composite material are important input for lifetime assessment. Neutronics calculations were performed to determine the radiation damage parameters in the fiber/matrix and the candidate interface materials. The radiation damage parameters were calculated for both the carbon and silicon sublattices. The radiation damage parameters were evaluated for representative candidate breeding blankets. The breeder and/or coolant such as Pb83Li17, Flibe and Li2O affect the radiation damage parameters by impacting the neutron spectrum. The results provide an essential input for SiC/SiC composite lifetime assessment. The impact of the unique features of inertial fusion systems on damage parameters are identified.
