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Latest News
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.
B. A. Pint, K. L. More, H. M. Meyer, J. R. DiStefano
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 47 | Number 4 | May 2005 | Pages 851-855
Technical Paper | Fusion Energy - Fusion Materials | doi.org/10.13182/FST05-A792
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Current compatibility research in the U.S. focuses on two topics: dual- or multi-layer electrically-resistant Y2O3/vanadium coatings in a V-Li blanket concept and SiC composites with a Pb-Li coolant. The compatibility issue for multi-layer coatings includes the ceramic insulating layer and the metallic vanadium alloy layer. Characterization of Y2O3 coatings after exposure to Li shows significant changes in the microstructure. Initial static capsule results for V-4Cr-4Ti alloys in Li at 800°C showed unexpected small mass gains. Capsule tests of monolithic SiC in Pb-17Li showed no mass change and no wetting after 1000h at 800°C and only limited wetting after 1000h at 1100°C. Chemical analysis of the Pb-Li after the tests did not detect Si to the detectability limit of 30ppma (5wppm). In both liquid metal systems, loop tests with a representative temperature gradient are needed to truly determine compatibility limits.
