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.
J. E. Klein, A. S. Poore, X. Xiao, D. W. Babineau
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 68 | Number 3 | October 2015 | Pages 573-577
Technical Paper | Proceedings of TOFE-2014 | doi.org/10.13182/FST14-920
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The design of many of the process systems at the Savannah River Site (SRS) Tritium Facilities were developed at the Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) in the 1980’s and early 1990’s for Cold War production requirements. Most of the process systems developed used cold (non-radioactive) test systems to reduce the cost of developing pilot and full-scale test systems. The metal hydride (MH) based process technologies developed for the Replacement Tritium Facility (RTF) allowed tritium process equipment to be confined in tritium stripped glovebox systems which greatly reduced tritium emissions to the public. Facility start-up in 1994 was considered state-of-the art technology for the world’s largest metal hydride based tritium process facility. The end of the Cold War reduced production requirements, but increased maintenance is needed for the 20 year old process systems. The Hydrogen Processing Development System (HPDS) is a new, non-radiological R&D system to be built for testing and demonstrating improved process systems for SRS Tritium Facilities. Experience gained from facility operations and new concepts from fusion fuel cycle development programs will be used to develop improved processes and restore base capabilities of the SRS Tritium Facilities. The HPDS will be designed to test systems such as a Revised Unloading Purification System (RUPS), an optimized advanced storage and isotope separation (OASIS) System, a Reduced Area Confinement and WAter Processing (RACWAP) System, and some components of a separate breeding and extraction program. New processes would retain the desirable features of the current/existing technologies while creating “right-sized” and flexible advanced or hybrid system to meet current and future tritium processing needs. Testing in the HPDS will reduce the cost and risk of deploying new technologies into the SRS tritium production process.