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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.
G. Granucci, A. Airoldi, E. Barbato, A. Bruschi, A. Cardinali, C. Castaldo, R. Cesario, S. Cirant, B. Esposito, D. Farina, F. Gandini, G. Giruzzi, C. Gormezano, M. Leigheb, M. Marinucci, F. Mirizzi, S. Nowak, L. Panaccione, V. Pericoli-Ridolfini, S. Podda, G. Ramponi, G. L. Ravera, A. N. Saveliev, A. Simonetto, C. Sozzi, A. A. Tuccillo, F. Zonca
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 45 | Number 3 | May 2004 | Pages 387-401
Technical Paper | Frascati Tokamak Upgrade (FTU) | doi.org/10.13182/FST04-A521
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
This chapter reports the main physics results obtained with three radio-frequency-injection systems. The frequency of 8 GHz for the lower hybrid (LH) current drive (CD) (LHCD) system was chosen to explore CD at high density: full CD has been demonstrated for central densities up to 1.4 × 1020 m-3 at 0.5 MA with an applied power up to 2.0 MW. The Frascati Tokamak Upgrade (FTU) database shows CD efficiencies from 0.1 to 0.3 × 1020 AW-1 m-2. In combined experiments with electron cyclotron (EC) waves (140 GHz, up to 1.2 MW), a suprathermal absorption by the fast electron tail generated by LHCD has been observed in both downshifted and upshifted interaction regimes, with the resulting electron cyclotron current drive (ECCD) ranging from 20 to 100 kA, depending on experimental conditions. With pure EC resonance heating, the narrowness of the radial power deposition profile has been exploited, resulting in strong local electron heating. Results in high-density regimes are also presented. The third system (433 MHz, 0.5 MW) is the first to test ion Bernstein wave (IBW) coupling with a waveguide antenna. The experiment operates at high frequency, avoiding the occurrence of nonlinear phenomena at the edge. Improved confinement regimes resulting in a central peaking of the pressure profiles have been achieved with PIBW up to 0.4 MW. Modeling and experimental results are summarized.
