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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.
J. G. Carver, W. R. Morgan, C. R. Porter, M. A. Robkin
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 41 | Number 2 | August 1970 | Pages 209-225
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE70-A20708
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Measurements have been made of relative nuclear-reaction rates within sub-critical water-moderated plutonia-urania fuel lattices, under conditions considered typical for plutonium recycle in central-station power reactors. Measurement conditions included water:fuel ratios of 3:1 and 2:1; temperatures of 70, 235, 330, 430, and 540°F; and three positions within the unit cell. Nuclear reaction rates measured included relative fission rates in 235U, 239Pu, and 241Pu, as well as relative capture rates in 176Lu (principal resonance at 0.143 eV), 168Yb (0.597 eV), 191Ir (0.654 eV), 193Ir (1.303 eV), 197Au (4.906 eV), 139La (73.5 eV), and 63Cu (1/v detector). To facilitate comparison with predicted values, the experimental resonance absorption-rate ratios were normalized to ratios measured within a pure water spectrum. Experimental reaction-rate ratios were compared with values predicted using the THERMØS code in conjunction with a modified version of EPITHERMØS; and agreement varying from fair to good was observed. The internal consistency of the measurements suggests their future utility for evaluating methods of calculating neutron spectra and relative reaction rates within lattices of the type considered.
