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Conference Spotlight
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.
Abdalla Abou-Jaoude, Yasir Arafat, Chandrakanth Bolisetti, Botros Hanna, Joshua Belvedere, James Blocker, Brandon Cooper, Shanda Harmon, Dan McCarthy
Nuclear Technology | Volume 209 | Number 11 | November 2023 | Pages 1697-1732
Regular Research Article | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2023.2206779
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Microreactors present promising opportunities to open new nuclear energy markets. However, it is expected that the economic competitiveness of this new class of reactors will hinge on potential cost reductions via mass production. It is therefore critical to begin assessing important considerations for the factory production of microreactors. An overview of the important aspects of the general layout of a microreactor factory, along with best practices to be incorporated early in the design process, is provided in this study. Then, a detailed use case is considered and modeled using a dedicated tool that can map workflows and activities within a factory. The end product is a 242 000 sq. ft. factory model that can ramp up production from 10 to 100 units per year.
Based on the activities and workflows needed, cost estimates for equipment and staffing needs are generated. These are expected to be first-order estimates, but would still provide guidance on the level of investment needed to reach mass production levels of microreactors. Furthermore, the potential cost reductions from scaling production are quantified. It was found that for a 100-unit factory throughput, reductions above 70% per unit cost relative to a prototype demonstration, could be observed for tasks conducted within a factory. These estimates focus solely on component fabricated at a factory and do not account for fuel costs nor any site activities. Because the analysis is design specific, not all findings are expected to be applicable across different microreactors (notably larger varieties), but it still provides a foundation establishing the basis for the mass production of these reactors.