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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.
S. Shin, S. I. Abdel-Khalik, M. Yoda, the ARIES Team
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 47 | Number 3 | April 2005 | Pages 708-712
Technical Paper | Fusion Energy - Divertor and Plasma-Facing Components | doi.org/10.13182/FST05-A768
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Recent work on liquid-surface-protected plasma facing components has resulted in the establishment of operating windows for candidate liquids, as well as limits on the maximum allowable liquid surface temperature in order to limit plasma impurities from liquid evaporation. In this study, an additional constraint on the maximum allowable surface temperature gradient (i.e., heat flux gradient) has been quantified. Spatial variations in the wall and liquid surface temperatures are expected due to variations in the incident radiation and particle fluxes. Thermocapillary forces created by such temperature gradients can lead to film rupture and dry spot formation in regions of elevated local temperatures. Here, attention has been focused on "non-flowing" thin liquid films similar to those formed on the surface of porous wettedwall components. Future analyses will include the effects of macroscopic fluid motion, and MHD forces.A numerical model using the level contour reconstruction method was used to follow the evolution of the liquid free surface above a non-isothermal solid surface. The model was used to develop generalized charts for the maximum allowable spatial temperature gradients (i.e., the critical Marangoni number) as a function of the governing non-dimensional variables, viz. the Weber, Froude, and Prandtl numbers, and aspect ratio. Attention was focused on the asymptotic limit for thin liquid films (i.e., low aspect ratio) which provides a lower bound for the maximum allowable temperature gradients. Specific examples for lithium, Flibe, lithium-lead, tin, and gallium are presented. The generalized charts developed in this investigation will allow reactor designers to identify design windows for successful operation of liquid-protected plasma facing components for various coolants, film thicknesses, and operating conditions.