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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.
Thomas Ihli
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 56 | Number 2 | August 2009 | Pages 905-912
Power Plants, Demo, and Next Steps | Eighteenth Topical Meeting on the Technology of Fusion Energy (Part 2) | doi.org/10.13182/FST09-A9025
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The apparent fundamental movements in the world wide energy market risen by (i) the dramatic increase in world energy demand, (ii) the perceived danger of an ongoing world climate change and (iii) the predicted price and resource trends in fossil resources have risen discussions on the possibilities to significantly further accelerate the development of pure fusion power stations undecontrast at the same time strong fusion specific challenges are being recognized in the light of some issues with the ITER project in terms of schedule, technologies and cost. Therefore, it seems to be appropriate to reappraise the role of DEMO and fusion energy in the overall context and consider readjusting or redefining the medium-term mission in nuclear fusion and its relation to nuclear fission.Firstly, the current paper assesses synergies with nuclear fission Gen4 reactors. It is ascertained that the development of efficiently helium cooled high temperature components and reactor systems allows for strong collaboration between fission and fusion. Furthermore, it could be concluded that an integrated nuclear strategy for the 21st century should be developed including all important aspects of the possible interplay between fusion and fission. It is briefly discussed whether hybrid fusion-fission systems could be a central point of such an integrated strategy in the world wide context.The second emphasis of the current paper is on the description of the current progress made in Karlsruhe in the fields of design and testing of helium cooled components for fusion power stations and test facilities. Efficient helium cooling methods for divertor and blanket structures were found by applying the state of the art jet impingement and rib turbulator heat transfer enhancement techniques. The low pressure and the high pressure TBM section of the HELOKA facilities are under assembly. HELOKA is the main experimental tool for out of pile testing and qualification of in-vessel components at Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe.
