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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.
David W. James, Gregg A. Morgan
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 71 | Number 3 | April 2017 | Pages 321-325
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2017.1291245
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Various getter materials are used in the processing of hydrogen isotopes and associated impurities. SAES® ST198 is a zirconium-iron alloy that is typically used for the removal of low levels of hydrogen isotopes from a process gas stream. However, numerous impurities may be present in process gas streams and some of these impurities may have a deleterious effect on the hydrogen absorption capabilities of ST198.
A series of experiments were completed to determine the effects of various impurities on the hydrogen gettering ability of ST198 as a function of the bed operating temperature. Changes in hydrogen getter performance were tracked using the analysis of Residual Gas Analyzer data. Baseline conditions of 0.1% hydrogen within a nitrogen rich stream were evaluated at both 350°C and ambient temperature conditions (24°C). Various concentrations of impurities were also explored to determine the effects on the hydrogen gettering of ST198. It has been determined that one benefit of ST198 is that it shows no appreciable interaction with nitrogen at temperatures lower than 425°C. However, gas impurities of carbon monoxide, methane, and ammonia were shown in this work to have an effect on the hydrogen gettering abilities of ST198.
This paper presents findings relating to the evaluation of the effect of carbon monoxide, ammonia, and methane impurities on the hydrogen gettering ability of the ST198. Lower operating temperature conditions made the ST198 getter bed more susceptible to deactivation in the presence of impurities. In the event that the studied impurities exist in the process gas stream, the ST198 material could possibly become deactivated towards hydrogen isotope absorption at lower operating temperatures.