POWER June 2022 - 36

MARNIE SURFACEBLOW
What Is Killing This Biomass
Boiler? Marnie and Maya Are
on the Case!
When seeking answers to critical operations problems, consider that multiple root
causes may be at play-thus requiring many different solutions. Watch as our
heroines track down the culprits!
Una Nowling, PE
A
s they trudged through the sultry
heat of an early July morning toward
the plant engineering office,
Marnie Surfaceblow, vice president and
lead field engineer of Surfaceblow & Associates
International (Figure 1), finally
had to say something. " Maya, my able
assistant, this smell is transcendently
terrible! It's absolutely appalling! It's a
malodorous and mephitic miasma of ... "
" Amazing alliteration as always,
ma'am. But kindly be respectful; the
plant workers dispose of poultry waste
products properly, providing power with
renewable energy. We will persevere. "
Breathing through the crude albeit
expensive filter of a Louis Vuitton
scarf, Marnie cast a side look at
her assistant with the hint of a smile.
" Point taken. But still, it's like that last
kraft paper mill we worked at! It took
weeks to get the smell out of my hair.
I should have worn a HAZMAT suit. "
As they approached the guard shack,
Maya Sharma, Marnie's senior field engineer,
joked, " Perhaps I shall gift you a
bespoke HAZMAT suit? I have memory
you said the color of this year is something
named 'Very Peri.' Is that right? "
Astonished, Marnie replied, " Your
memory amazes me. I don't remember
saying that ... it sounds like me ...
maybe after we get paid. Anyhow, here
comes our client so let's get into character.
Luke! It's so good to see you again! "
Marnie walked forward and shook the
hand of Luke Broussard, the plant manager
of a little Louisiana bio-energy plant
with a big problem.
" Well, if it ain't Miss Surfaceblow!
It's good to see your face again, although
the last time you were still goin'
to school and tagging along with your
grandpa Marmaduke. "
" It was supposed to be summer vacation,
but grandpa thought vacation meant
'we'll only work forty hours a week,' "
muttered Marnie. She introduced Maya
to Luke. He shook her hand and said, " I
understand this is your first time in Louisiana
Miss Sharma. I gotta warn you, it
gets mighty hot and humid! "
" You should visit Mumbai. This is quite
nice, relatively. "
" Well, that may be, but we also got
hurricanes here! " replied Luke.
" We call ours 'cyclones,' " Maya retorted.
" OK,
well, then watch out for the gators
hereabouts, " Luke warned, arms
folded. Maya took a similar stance, replying,
" We have crocodiles. Five meters
long. "
Marnie finally broke up the brag
fest by saying, " OK you two, you can
brag about hurricanes and crocodiles
later. Let's get inside and talk turkey-
I mean chicken. "
1. Marnie Surfaceblow, vice president and
lead field engineer of Surfaceblow & Associates
International. Source: POWER
36
Waste to Energy
" We were designed to burn sugar cane
waste from nearby mills. That's worked
really fine for us since, well, your grandpa
fixed that problem with our traveling
www.powermag.com
grate. 'Bout three years ago, this giant
poultry plant opened up down the road.
They asked if we'd buy their waste for
fuel. Being a stoker furnace, we could
burn it, but didn't see why we should
change. Then, a year later, they offered
us $5 a ton to take it off their hands. We
ran the numbers and it looked good. "
" Really?!? Why'd they suddenly start
paying you to take the waste? " Marnie
asked suspiciously.
Luke grinned. " The local landfill said
the smell was so awful that even the
folks at the sewage plant next door
complained about it-and you better believe
those folks got cast-iron noses, " he
said. Maya ignored Marnie's smug look
cast her way.
Luke continued: " Things were OK
mixing the fuels up to 'bout a 50-50
blend. Then, we'd start to slag the boiler
near the arch, block off the generation
tubes, and finally the furnace ran positive
pressure and we'd trip. Then, we'd
spend two or three weeks cleaning the
boiler out and start up again at something
safe, like 20% poultry waste, then
creeping back up. It weren't so bad.
We'd come down once every 6 months
or so for cleaning. Then, after our last
outage, something changed. "
" What was special about this outage? "
Marnie asked, as Maya tapped
notes into her phone with efficient
dexterity.
" Don't know. Just the normal-cleaning
the grate, de-slagging the boiler,
replaced a leaky drain valve on our #4
heater. The hardest part was all the fuel
yard work. "
Marnie's interest was suddenly
piqued, as Luke continued. " The state
said we had a runoff problem from the
poultry pile. So, now we got 20,000
tons of poultry waste in a fuel barn,
and boy oh boy does it concentrate the
smell. " Maya ignored Marnie's second
POWER | June 2022
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POWER June 2022

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