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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.
Roderick D. MacDonald, Ian J. Hastings
Nuclear Technology | Volume 71 | Number 2 | November 1985 | Pages 430-444
Technical Paper | Nuclear Fuel | doi.org/10.13182/NT85-A33696
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Zircaloy-clad fuel elements containing UO2 pellets separated by thin graphite disks have been irradiated to maximum burnups of 800 MWh/kg U (33 000 MWd/tonne U) at a linear power range of 30 to 70 kW/m. Fission gas release and sheath strains were lower than experienced for conventional fuel under comparable conditions because of the lower bulk average fuel temperatures in disk elements. The irradiated disk elements also showed good internal stability, tolerance to power ramping, and acceptable defect behavior.
