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Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
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.
T. W. T. Burnett and T. G. Williamson
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 21 | Number 2 | February 1965 | Pages 201-205
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE65-A21044
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The infinite multiplication factor, k∞ is one of the basic parameters of a sub-critical assembly. Usually, these assemblies are designed for maximum k∞ however, it is difficult to conduct laboratory experiments which yield a value of k∞ to reasonable accuracy. Common methods, such as the loading technique and exponential experiment, are of doubtful validity or require apparatus not always available. Pulsing techniques are widely accepted, but are difficult to apply to reflected assemblies. In this work, an alternative approach is used. It is based on the integration of the thermal-neutron flux over the equivalent infinite medium. Use of variations in the method with poisoned assemblies eliminates the need for accurate determinations of the source strength, the absolute thermal-flux calibration, and the epithermal parameters of the medium. The theory is general and can be applied with a minimum of equipment. The results obtained from this method (and its variations) were checked by pulse measurements on the bare assembly and by a four-factor formula calculation. All results agree to within 2%.