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Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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Fusion Science and Technology
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.
Younggil Jin, Hyun-Su Kim, Sun-Taek Lim, Jin-Young Lee, Nam-Kyun Kim, Jae-Min Song, Gon-Ho Kim
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 68 | Number 1 | July 2015 | Pages 113-119
Technical Paper | Open Magnetic Systems 2014 | doi.org/10.13182/FST14-886
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The effect of interface diffusion between tungsten and graphite on embrittlement has not been examined over the tungsten ductile-brittle transition temperature. To analyze interface embrittlement with tungsten carbide (WC) formation and hardness, a reactive diffusion barrier model was adapted to clarify the roles of leak rate, lag time, and impurity. Plasma-sprayed tungsten (PS-W) on graphite with molybdenum interlayer (diffusion barrier) was fabricated using plasma-spray. The carbon concentration and hardness were measured using energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy and micro-indentation after furnace experiments relevant to plasma-facing component upper limit temperature (1470 K). The lag time and the leak rate were determined by the model with different impurity amounts (10-30 at. %) and barrier thicknesses (1-40 μm). It is worth noting that the lag time determines embrittlement threshold time because it delays the onset of diffusion, and it is expanded with thicker barrier and impurity (0.07-21000 ms). The leak rate represents the embrittlement rate since it limits the diffusion flux, and it does not depend on impurity but on barrier thickness. Diffusion-induced interface embrittlement was measured and estimated based on WC fraction. The embrittlement can be spatially expanded with time, suggesting that interface embrittlement can be severe for KSTAR long-term operation.