POWER June 2022 Intl - 37

MARNIE SURFACEBLOW
yonder is our new fuel barn. " Luke narrated as they surveyed
a desolate lot near the wood chip pile. Feathers, straw, and
other remnants were mixed into an off-white mudscape. Maya
leaned to whisper to Marnie, staring at the ground. " Ma'am ...
I have ... seen this before! "
" Ooooooo ... do that again, Maya! " Marnie replied, bouncing
with unusual joy.
" Do what again ma'am? " Maya asked with a puzzled look.
" Whisper like you're in a horror movie-all creepy and
mysterious. "
Maya rolled her eyes. " Seriously, ma'am, my Auntie Komal
had a farm in Nagpur and there were many chicken coops on
the farm. The waste made white stains on the ground and
nothing would ever grow there. "
" You're on the right track, " Marnie replied cheerfully, " but
2. Marnie, Maya, and Luke inspect the fuel on the conveyor belt
downstream from the additive spray system. Source: POWER
smug look. " But, then, the poultry plant changed something,
I don't know, and now we can't burn more than 10% of the
stuff. We also tried taking waste from a smaller farm up yonder.
Made no difference. "
" Tell me about your furnace cleaning. How well does that
work? " asked Marnie.
" Oh, we keep up on that. In fact, we just upgraded the
sootblowers by the arch, and it only buys us about another
month of operations. We thought about upping our blower
pressure, but we're already eroding the tubes away as it is. "
" And more thermal shock doesn't help either. Have you
tried any fuel additives? "
" I was about to come to that, " Luke replied. " We
started with magnesium oxide, and then kaolin clay.
They help a little, but they're expensive. "
" Sir, did you have ash mineral and fusion temperature
analyses from before and after the outage? " asked
Maya.
" Oh, we haven't run those for years. They're kinda
expensive. " Maya's shocked, silent look spoke volumes.
" But on the plus side, we do furnace tuning every six
months, " offered Luke, feeling a little embarrassed under
Maya's gaze. " We got two air fans and one induced
draft fan for the furnace, and the tuners are always having
to rebalance pressures. "
" Sir, what does your DCS system say about furnace
pressures? " Maya asked hesitantly, unsurprised by
Luke's reply. " We don't have any working furnace pressure
sensors 'cept after the economizer. Our fans all get
damper problems from the humidity. Sometimes, we
even get Spanish moss blocking the intakes. "
Marnie grabbed her hard hat. " This all sounds simply
dreadful, Luke. You have more problems than we
had opossums living in our motel room last night. Oh
yeah, how many did you find sleeping in your bathroom,
Maya? "
" Honestly ma'am, I did not count. One was more
than sufficient. And they have many, many teeth. "
" Well, at least they eat ticks, right? " Marnie beamed
happily as Maya shuddered. " Luke, why don't you give
us the grand tour. "
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Fuel for the Fire
" Here's where our poultry waste pile was, and right over
June 2022 | POWER
www.powermag.com
37
there's more to see. Luke, take us to the fuel feed system. " As
Luke and Marnie headed toward the conveyers, Maya stealthily
grabbed a handful of chicken feathers and stuffed them into the
pocket of her coveralls.
Applying Additives
" We dump the fuel additive on the main belt after the wood
chip and poultry waste conveyors meet at the mixing bin upstream.
We use variable-speed motors on the volumetric feeders
for blend control. The additive drops onto the belt right
here, " Luke said, as he pointed to a row of spray nozzles coating
the top of the fuel on the moving conveyor with a thick
off-white slurry (Figure 2). " And, then, it goes to screw feeders
and spreads out on the grate. "
" Hmmm ..., " Marnie trailed off as she watched the mixed
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POWER June 2022 Intl

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