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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.
A. H. Fleitman, A. J. Romano and C. J. Klamut
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 22 | Number 1 | May 1965 | Pages 24-32
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE65-A19759
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Mercury corrosion of Si-deoxidized, low-carbon steel was studied in 5000-h tests using four natural circulation loops with once-through boilers operating at 593°C and with 111°C of superheat. The relative effects of very small quantities of Ti or Zr additions to the Hg and the effectiveness of steel pretreatment (for 500 h at 590–620°C with a liquid Hg-Zr solution), prior to contact with boiling Hg, were determined. A fourth loop, which had no additives nor loop pretreatment, was run simultaneously. With the exception of the Hg-Zr pretreated loop, maximum depth of corrosion did not exceed 50 µm and occurred near the superheater exit where the temperature was the highest. Boiler and condenser corrosion were less than 30 µm in these latter loops. Corrosion 300–1000 µm deep was found on the downstream side of the superheater of the Hg-Zr pretreated loop, and the severity of the attack was attributed to boiling instabilities, which caused liquid Hg to come into contact with the superheater walls. Adherent iron deposits were found in the boilers and cooler liquid regions of three of the loops, but no discernible iron deposits were found in the loop with Zr added. The total quantity of mass-transferred iron (deposits and particulate) was estimated to be approximately 0.2 gm in the Zr-added loop, 0.5 gm in the Ti-added loop, 1 gm in the loop with no additions and 2 gm in the loop pretreated with Hg-Zr solution.