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September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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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.
R. C. Lloyd, C. R. Richey, E. D. Clayton, D. R. Skeen
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 25 | Number 2 | June 1966 | Pages 165-173
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE66-A17733
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A series of criticality experiments were performed with plutonium (4.6% 240Pu) nitrate solution in stainless steel spheres of 11.5-, 14-, and 15.2-in. diam. Reflectors of water, concrete, paraffin, and stainless steel were used; experiments were also performed on the 15.2-in. sphere unreflected. The spheres were made critical with plutonium concentrations varying from 24 to 435 g Pu/liter and molarity varying from 0.2 to 7.7. The minimum critical volumes for Pu(NO3)4 in water containing 4.6% 240Pu were determined to be about 22 and 11 liters, respectively, for bare and reflected spheres at a concentration of 175 g Pu/liter. The effect of a 0.030-in. cadmium shell or a 4-in. air gap between the reflector and the vessel reduced the reflector worth to that of a nominal reflector (1-in. of water or less) for the concentrations of plutonium measured. Comparisons were made between experimental and theoretical results using multigroup diffusion theory.