ANS is committed to advancing, fostering, and promoting the development and application of nuclear sciences and technologies to benefit society.
Explore the many uses for nuclear science and its impact on energy, the environment, healthcare, food, and more.
Explore membership for yourself or for your organization.
Conference Spotlight
Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
Standards Program
The Standards Committee is responsible for the development and maintenance of voluntary consensus standards that address the design, analysis, and operation of components, systems, and facilities related to the application of nuclear science and technology. Find out What’s New, check out the Standards Store, or Get Involved today!
Latest Magazine Issues
Sep 2025
Jan 2025
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
September 2025
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
August 2025
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.
F. Cismondi et al.
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 56 | Number 1 | July 2009 | Pages 221-226
Tritium, Safety, and Environment | Eighteenth Topical Meeting on the Technology of Fusion Energy (Part 1) | doi.org/10.13182/FST09-A8906
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
In the frame of the activities of the EU Breeder Blanket Programme and of the Test Blanket Working Group of ITER, the Helium Cooled Pebble Bed Test Blanket Module (HCPB-TBM) is developed to investigate DEMO relevant concepts for blanket modules. The main functions of a blanket module (heat removal, tritium breeding and sensitive components shielding) will be tested in DEMO relevant conditions during four different test campaigns in ITER. One TBM of the HCPB concept will be installed into the vacuum vessel connected to one equatorial port designed for vertical TBM orientation during each of the four test campaigns. This paper describes the FZK activities in order to verify the design of the HCPB TBM with regard to operational conditions in ITER and to prove the feasibility of the manufacturing techniques proposed.As the studies performed in FZK up to 2006 concerned a horizontal orientation of the HCPB, a review of the design was necessary to match with the new ITER specifications. Even if the general architecture of the horizontal TBM is maintained, nevertheless the change of configuration has significant impact on the design of the TBM sub-components. An overview of the new vertical HCPB design is presented, detailing the strategy adopted to assess the design and the thermal and fluid dynamic analyses performed for the TBM First Wall.In parallel to the TBM design and analysis, a large mock-up programme addresses the main issues of manufacturing and performances for single components and systems. The three medium-size mock-ups foreseen in FZK to validate the fabrication and mounting processes are presented detailing their purposes.