ANS is committed to advancing, fostering, and promoting the development and application of nuclear sciences and technologies to benefit society.
Explore the many uses for nuclear science and its impact on energy, the environment, healthcare, food, and more.
Explore membership for yourself or for your organization.
Conference Spotlight
Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
Standards Program
The Standards Committee is responsible for the development and maintenance of voluntary consensus standards that address the design, analysis, and operation of components, systems, and facilities related to the application of nuclear science and technology. Find out What’s New, check out the Standards Store, or Get Involved today!
Latest Magazine Issues
Sep 2025
Jan 2025
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
September 2025
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
August 2025
Latest News
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.
Yiren Lian, Hongchao Sun, Hao Yang, Xiaopeng Song, Xinjing Yang, Shutang Sun, Pengyi Wang, Lei Chen, Yeming Zhu, Guoqiang Li, Jiangang Zhang
Nuclear Technology | Volume 209 | Number 9 | September 2023 | Pages 1398-1404
Research Article | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2023.2200542
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
In the nuclear fuel cycle, 30 vol % tributyl phosphate/kerosene is always used as the major actinide extractant. However, there is a risk of fire accident during the usage of the solvent solution. It is necessary to investigate solvent fire because of the release of radioactive materials and possible overheating and blocking of ventilation filters. This paper discusses several tests of solvent solution combustion that were carried out to analyze the safety of solvent fire. Parameters such as gas emission of solvent burning, mass loss rate, and production of aerosol were obtained and analyzed. The experimental data obtained in this paper can be useful to develop a method of solvent fire assessment and evaluate a solvent fire accident in a nuclear fuel cycle facility.
