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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.
A.A. Ivanov, G.F. Abdrashitov, A.V. Anikeev, P.A. Bagryansky, P.P. Deichuli, A.N. Karpushov, S.A. Korepanov, A.A. Lizunov, V.V. Maximov, S.V. Murakhtin, A. Yu. Smirnov, A.A. Zouev, K. Noack, G. Otto
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 43 | Number 1 | January 2003 | Pages 51-57
Overview | doi.org/10.13182/FST03-A11963562
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
GDT experiments of significance to a GDT-based neutron source development are reported in the areas of generation of axially peaked neutron flux profile, stable confinement with on-axis plasma beta ~ 40%, and radial electric field control. Skew injection of 4MW 15-17keV deuterium neutral beams into central cell resulted in generation of strongly peaked axial profile of neutron flux density. This can be described by a model of fast ion relaxation, which involves only classical mechanisms of electron drag and binary ion-ion collisions. Experiments with the radial limiter biasing show that the plasma density profile and radial losses respond to the electric filed profile. An increase of plasma energy was achieved with increased magnetic field in the central cell and optimized radial profile of electric field in the plasma. In these regimes of improved target plasma confinement, the on-axis plasma beta near the turning points of fast deuterons exceeded, as above mentioned, ~40%. The plans for future upgrade of the GDT device are discussed. It suggests considerable increase of NB injected power (up to 10MW) and extension of the pulse duration from 1ms to 3-5ms. After the upgrade, a significant increase of the electron temperature to 250-300eV could be obtained. Properties of the plasma with the parameters approaching those in the full-scale neutron source are planned to study in experiments with NB injection into additional cell near the end mirror.