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Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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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.
K. J. Heroux, E. G. Estochen
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 71 | Number 3 | April 2017 | Pages 410-415
Technical Note | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2017.1291234
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The hydriding-induced wall stress evaluation of a prototype Four-Inch SHort (FISH) tritium hydride bed revealed that the advanced design features do not result in additional strain on the process vessel walls during simulated operation. The maximum tensile wall stress measured at high hydrogen loadings (H/M > 0.7) was determined to be <40% of the ASME allowable limit for 316L stainless steel. Variation in wall stress with hydride loading was also examined via stepwise protium absorption and desorption. Minimal hydriding-induced wall stress was observed in the optimal operating range of the hydride material. The results described herein are in good agreement with previous studies on similar hydride storage beds without the advanced design features. Completed verification of ASME compliance for the FISH bed is a major milestone in its qualification for tritium service.