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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.
L. Colas, K. Vulliez, V. Basiuk, Tore Supra Team
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 56 | Number 3 | October 2009 | Pages 1173-1204
Technical Papers | Tore Supra Special Issue | doi.org/10.13182/FST09-A9173
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
As the main additional heating system and the only means to heat the ions, ion cyclotron resonance heating (ICRH) plays a central role in plasma scenario developments on Tore Supra. Conversely, the specific focus of Tore Supra toward long-duration discharges places its heating system in an original position in the ion cyclotron community. High-power long-pulse requirements motivated innovative design choices and operational methods. Over long pulses, the physics of rf waves in the plasma edge early emerged as a crucial issue that was abundantly studied and benefited from original diagnostic techniques, some of which still remain unique in the magnetic fusion community. This paper reviews ICRH technology and physics on Tore Supra, from the generators and antennas to the central plasma via the scrape-off layer. Emphasis is put on the experience gained over 20 years of experimental and theoretical activity. Lessons are drawn for next-step devices.