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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.
F. Romanelli, A. Coletti, C. Gormezano, F. Lucci, A. Pizzuto, G. B. Righetti, The FTU Group, The ECRH Group
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 45 | Number 3 | May 2004 | Pages 483-511
Technical Paper | Frascati Tokamak Upgrade (FTU) | doi.org/10.13182/FST04-A526
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A conceptual study is presented for a substantial upgrade of the Frascati Tokamak Upgrade (FTU) up to B = 8 T, I = 6 MA, and R [approximately equal to] 1.3 m to study burning plasma (BP) issues in deuterium plasmas operating up to an equivalent DT gain close to Q = 2 in the ELMy H-mode and to Q = 5 with an internal transport barrier (ITB). The effect of alpha particles is simulated by ~1 MeV fast 3He minority heating produced by ion cyclotron resonance heating (20 MW). Thanks to the high-density values ([approximately equal to]4 × 1020 m-3), the FT3 plasmas are characterized by short electron-ion equipartition time (60 ms in the ELMy H-mode scenario) and slowing-down time (44 ms), with respect to the energy confinement time of ~340 ms, a feature characteristic of BP experiments but not always satisfied with present tokamak devices. Advanced scenarios at 5 T with fully noninductive current drive can be investigated with a steady-state current density profile achieved in <5 s. The aim of FT3 is to prepare ITER operation and to provide a test bed for the development of the ITER auxiliary system and diagnostics. Elements of the scientific program are as follows: the investigation of energetic particle collective effects, optimization of H-mode scenarios, development of improved H-mode scenarios and scenarios with ITBs, magnetohydrodynamic and transport studies in ITER-relevant conditions, and study of edge plasma dynamics. FT3 can use all the existing facilities available in Frascati and could be constructed in ~5 yr.