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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.
I. C. Goyal, L. S. Kothari
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 23 | Number 2 | October 1965 | Pages 159-166
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE65-A28140
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Equilibrium neutron energy spectra inside finite blocks of beryllium at different temperatures have been calculated by solving the energy-dependent Boltzmann equation in the diffusion approximation by numerical iteration. Different sizes of the assembly have been considered. The values of the transport mean free path, λtr (E), (for various temperatures) have been taken from earlier work. Because of the peaks in the transport mean free path, the calculated equilibrium flux differs markedly from the Maxwellian, particularly for small sizes and low temperatures. Calculations also give the values of the decay constant, λ for equilibrium neutrons. Values of λ based on Placzek kernel agree very well with the experimental values. The reasons why the present calculated values, as also the experimental values of λ, exceed Corngold's theoretical upper bound have been discussed. The effect on λ of ‘trapped neutrons’ and that of cold neutrons has also been studied by taking different forms for σtr (E).
