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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.
O. Tudisco, G. M. Apruzzese, P. Buratti, L. Cantarini, A. Canton, L. Carraro, V. Cocilovo, R. de Angelis, M. de Benedetti, B. Esposito, L. Gabellieri, E. Giovannozzi, G. Granucci, L. A. Grosso, G. Grosso, P. Innocente, H. Kroegler, M. Leigheb, G. Monari, D. Pacella, L. Panaccione, V. Pericoli-Ridolfini, G. Pizzicaroli, S. Podda, M. E. Puiatti, G. Rocchi, A. Sibio, A. Simonetto, P. Smeulders, U. Tartari, N. Tartoni, B. Tilia, M. Valisa, V. Zanza, M. Zerbini
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 45 | Number 3 | May 2004 | Pages 402-421
Technical Paper | Frascati Tokamak Upgrade (FTU) | doi.org/10.13182/FST04-A522
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The design of diagnostics for the Frascati Tokamak Upgrade (FTU) is challenging because of the compactness of the machine (8-cm-wide ports) and the low operating temperatures requiring the presence of a cryostat. Nevertheless, a rather complete diagnostic system has been progressively installed. The basic systems include a set of magnetic probes, various visible and ultraviolet spectrometers, electron cyclotron emission (ECE) for electron temperature profiles measurements and electron tails monitoring, far-infrared and CO2 interferometry, X-ray (soft and hard) measurements, a multichord neutron diagnostics (with different type detectors), and a Thomson scattering system. Some diagnostics specific to the FTU physics program have been used such as microwave reflectometry for turbulence studies, edge-scanning Langmuir probes for radio-frequency coupling assessment, oblique ECE, and a fast electron bremsstrahlung (FEB) camera for lower hybrid current drive-induced fast electron tails.These systems are briefly reviewed in this paper. Further developments including a scanning CO2 laser two-color interferometer, two FEB cameras for tomographic analysis, a motional Stark effect system, and a collective Thomson scattering system are also described.
