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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.
Peter Royl, Barry D. Ganapol, Charles R. Bell
Nuclear Technology | Volume 71 | Number 1 | October 1985 | Pages 145-161
Technical Paper | Nuclear Safety | doi.org/10.13182/NT85-A33716
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The potential for fuel removal through the inner blanket intersubassembly gaps before the formation of interconnected pools of fuel and steel has been investigated for the Clinch River Breeder Reactor heterogeneous core under conditions of an unprotected loss of flow accident. The relevant physical phenomena were simulated with the SIMMER-II accident analysis code with the necessary model adaptations identified. A base case has only been set up for the four inner sub-assembly rings. Based on the understanding gained from this case and an evaluation of a sensitivity study, combined variations for an enhancement of fuel removal are examined. For low flow resistance in the gap, sustained pressurization in the driver assemblies, and delayed blanket gap wall failure, a substantial amount of fuel can be removed from the active core through the inner blanket gaps. The analyzed problem is closely related to the thermal propagation issue.
