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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 Yarsky
Nuclear Technology | Volume 207 | Number 5 | May 2021 | Pages 665-679
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2020.1810465
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
In a companion paper, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) staff has described analyses performed using the TRAC/RELAP Advanced Computational Engine (TRACE) code to study the transient system response of the NuScale power module to a postulated beyond-design-basis loss of alternating-current (LOAC) power transient where the module protection system completely fails to insert the control rods. The subject paper studies the sensitivity of the event progression and consequences to variation in the initial reactor coolant system (RCS) temperature. These studies were performed by varying the effective steam generator heat transfer surface area between 100% and 50% of the nominal area. The results of the NRC staff analyses show that at increased initial temperatures, it is possible for the NuScale primary side to remain critical for an extended period of time, leading to a sustained loss of primary-side inventory through pressure relief until the natural circulation flow pattern in the RCS becomes broken. After the flow loop is broken, reactor power decreases significantly, and the primary figures of merit important to safety are met with substantial margin.
