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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.
E. E. Bloom, J. M. Leitnaker, J. O. Stiegler
Nuclear Technology | Volume 31 | Number 2 | November 1976 | Pages 232-243
Technical Paper | Material | doi.org/10.13182/NT76-A31685
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The effects of titanium additions up to 0.6 wt% on the irradiation-induced swelling and changes in creep-rupture properties were investigated. Samples were irradiated in the Experimental Breeder Reactor II at temperatures in the range from 450 to 700°C to a maximum neutron fluence of 7.8 × 1026 n/m2 (>0.1 MeV). In annealed material, the irradiation-induced swelling exhibited a minimum in the range 0.2 to 0.4 wt% titanium. The minimum in swelling was directly attributable to a minimum in the concentration of voids. Samples irradiated in the 20% cold-worked condition exhibited slight densification at 3.0 × 1026 n/m2 (>0.1 MeV) at both 500 and 600°C. A small density decrease (0.23%) occurred during irradiation to 6.6 × 1026 n/m2 (>0.1 MeV). Postirradiation creep-rupture ductility was a maximum for alloys containing 0.23 and 0.33 wt% titanium. The observed swelling behavior in the annealed material is thought to be associated with changing amounts of titanium and carbon in solution in the austenite as the total titanium concentration is increased. The improved ductility is attributable to a decreased tendency for grain boundary crack formation and appears to be associated with removal of sulfur and possibly other impurities from solution in the austenite.
