POWER May 2022 Intl - 30
MARNIE SURFACEBLOW
Oil Pump Amps Provide
the Clue Marnie Needs to
Stave Off Trouble
Incessant trivial alarms can drown out important warnings and cause headaches
for control room operators. In this installment of Marnie Surfaceblow, our fearless
heroine wades through all the noise to identify and correct what could otherwise
have resulted in a serious plant problem.
Una Nowling, PE
t was a plant conference room like a
thousand others in this permutation
at an 80-MW wood-fueled boiler.
Once painted a cheerful if tacky orange,
the walls were now stained a depressing
but more fashionable brown
in the few spaces they weren't covered
with plant P&IDs, layout drawings, and
monthly outage reports. Three people
sat in grease-stained fabric chairs
around an oversized wooden table,
fighting for space with piles of threering
binders and plant drawings. The
feeble attempts of a HEPA filter could
not compete with a mélange of resinous
pine wood fuel and ancient power
plant coffee.
Stanislav " Stan " Kominski, current
plant manager and an engineer with
more than four decades spent in the
school of hard knocks, sat at the head
of the table. He was a man whose exasperation
showed clearly in the lines
of his face and the slump of his shoulders.
His doubt towards the capabilities
of the two overpriced consultants
he'd been forced to hire by his boss
was also plain to see. One was late
middle-aged and looked a bit too corporate
for being at a power plant. Sure,
she had a set of well-worn but proper
personal protective equipment, and an
air of quiet confidence and experience,
but her Prada purse invited contempt,
stained though it was with No. 6 oil.
The other was much too young, with
the tense alertness that broadcasted
" summer intern. "
Stan sighed, pinched the bridge of
his nose with his calloused fingers,
and decided to get the meeting over
with. " So, here's what we're dealing
with-I printed out a copy for each of
you. We installed a fancy new intelligent
monitoring system to cut down
I
30
The History Behind Marnie Surfaceblow
Long-time POWER readers may remember
Marmaduke Surfaceblow, a
fictional character whose engineering
escapades were brilliantly portrayed
in hundreds of stories published
within POWER magazine's pages
over more than 30 years beginning in
1948. Stephen M. Elonka was Marmaduke's
creator. He fashioned the
character as a 6-foot-4, steelbrush
mustached, marine engineer with a
foghorn voice, who smoked acrid cigars,
drank Sandpiper gin, and wore
size 16 " canal boat " shoes. Elonka
said the name was a combination of
the Scottish name Marmaduke, and
Surfaceblow, a method of removing
dissolved solids from a steam boiler.
He said the character was " a composite
of all the tough, hard-working,
hard-playing, but capable and ingenious
stationary and marine engineers "
with whom he had worked
and sailed with aboard 21 merchant
ships and two navy vessels during
World War II.
write
Elonka used his experience to
elaborate
stories
incorporating
ingenious, yet practical, repairs
to keep energy systems operating
using mostly common sense. The
stories often included unusual and
humorous incidents, and readers
grew to cherish the character and his
exploits. Some subscribers reported
it was the first thing they read in every
POWER magazine issue.
on the alarms my operators get each
shift, and maybe help optimize sootblowing
so we stop turning our reheater
into Swiss cheese. Now, we get
just as many alarms as before, plus 50
more a day from this thing! My operawww.powermag.com
Elonka
wrote more than simple
fiction. In addition to chronicling
Marmaduke's adventures, he also
authored or co-authored at least 10
technical books on subjects such as
boiler, electrical, instrumentation,
equipment, refrigeration and air conditioning,
and general plant operations.
Yet, his Marmaduke stories are
perhaps his most beloved work.
Elonka died in 1983, relegating
Marmaduke to the annals of history.
However, in anticipation of POWER's
140th anniversary this year, the POWER
editors hope to recreate the magic
that was Marmaduke. With a mission
of reviving and adding to the unique
history, the character Marnie Surfaceblow
was crafted.
Like Marmaduke, the name Marnie
is of Scottish origin. In POWER's
fictional world, she is the daughter
of Guy Newcomen Surfaceblow and
granddaughter of the late Marmaduke.
Guy-a character that Elonka
created in 1971-was Marmaduke's
son and a professional engineer
himself. In 1978, Elonka wrote a
new branch office into the dialog
and subsequently had Guy update
the firm's name to Surfaceblow
& Associates International. Today,
we're placing Marnie, an accomplished
professional engineer in her
own right, in the role of vice president
and lead field engineer for the
firm. We hope you enjoy reading the
adventures of Marnie and her sidekick
Maya.
tors hate this new thing so much they
won't even turn the screen on. The vendor
wants a fortune to debug what they
sold us, and I'm hoping your company
can help us do something useful with
it. Any ideas? "
POWER | May 2022
http://www.powermag.com
POWER May 2022 Intl
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of POWER May 2022 Intl
POWER May 2022 Intl - Cover1
POWER May 2022 Intl - Cover2
POWER May 2022 Intl - 1
POWER May 2022 Intl - 2
POWER May 2022 Intl - 3
POWER May 2022 Intl - 4
POWER May 2022 Intl - 5
POWER May 2022 Intl - 6
POWER May 2022 Intl - 7
POWER May 2022 Intl - 8
POWER May 2022 Intl - 9
POWER May 2022 Intl - 10
POWER May 2022 Intl - 11
POWER May 2022 Intl - 12
POWER May 2022 Intl - 13
POWER May 2022 Intl - 14
POWER May 2022 Intl - 15
POWER May 2022 Intl - 16
POWER May 2022 Intl - 17
POWER May 2022 Intl - 18
POWER May 2022 Intl - 19
POWER May 2022 Intl - 20
POWER May 2022 Intl - 21
POWER May 2022 Intl - 22
POWER May 2022 Intl - 23
POWER May 2022 Intl - 24
POWER May 2022 Intl - 25
POWER May 2022 Intl - 26
POWER May 2022 Intl - 27
POWER May 2022 Intl - 28
POWER May 2022 Intl - 29
POWER May 2022 Intl - 30
POWER May 2022 Intl - 31
POWER May 2022 Intl - 32
POWER May 2022 Intl - 33
POWER May 2022 Intl - 34
POWER May 2022 Intl - 35
POWER May 2022 Intl - 36
POWER May 2022 Intl - 37
POWER May 2022 Intl - 38
POWER May 2022 Intl - 39
POWER May 2022 Intl - 40
POWER May 2022 Intl - Cover3
POWER May 2022 Intl - Cover4
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https://www.nxtbook.com/accessintelligence/POWER/pwr-re-tech_september-2024
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https://www.nxtbook.com/accessintelligence/POWER/re-tech-supp-to-power-september-2023
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https://www.nxtbook.com/accessintelligence/POWER/power-november-2022
https://www.nxtbook.com/accessintelligence/POWER/Power-October-2022-140th-Anniversary-Supp
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https://www.nxtbook.com/accessintelligence/POWER/power-september-2022
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https://www.nxtbook.com/accessintelligence/POWER/Power-July-2022-Intl
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https://www.nxtbook.com/accessintelligence/POWER/power-june-2022-intl
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https://www.nxtbook.com/accessintelligence/POWER/power-may-2022
https://www.nxtbook.com/accessintelligence/POWER/power-may-2022-intl
https://www.nxtbook.com/accessintelligence/POWER/power-april-2022
https://www.nxtbook.com/accessintelligence/POWER/Power-April-2022-Intl
https://www.nxtbook.com/accessintelligence/POWER/power-march-2022
https://www.nxtbook.com/accessintelligence/POWER/power-february-2022
https://www.nxtbook.com/accessintelligence/POWER/power-january-2022
https://www.nxtbook.com/accessintelligence/POWER/power-december-2021
https://www.nxtbook.com/accessintelligence/POWER/power-top-plants-supp-december-2021
https://www.nxtbook.com/accessintelligence/POWER/power-november-2021
https://www.nxtbook.com/accessintelligence/POWER/power-october-2021
https://www.nxtbook.com/accessintelligence/POWER/power-september-2021
https://www.nxtbook.com/accessintelligence/POWER/power-august-2021
https://www.nxtbook.com/accessintelligence/POWER/power-july-2021
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https://www.nxtbook.com/accessintelligence/POWER/power-may-2021
https://www.nxtbook.com/accessintelligence/POWER/power-april-2021
https://www.nxtbook.com/accessintelligence/POWER/power-march-2021
https://www.nxtbook.com/accessintelligence/POWER/power-february-2021
https://www.nxtbook.com/accessintelligence/POWER/power-january-2021
https://www.nxtbook.com/accessintelligence/POWER/power-december-2020
https://www.nxtbook.com/accessintelligence/POWER/power-november-2020
https://www.nxtbook.com/accessintelligence/POWER/power-october-2020
https://www.nxtbook.com/accessintelligence/POWER/power-september-2020
https://www.nxtbook.com/accessintelligence/POWER/power-august-2020
https://www.nxtbook.com/accessintelligence/POWER/power-july-2020
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https://www.nxtbook.com/accessintelligence/POWER/power-november-2019
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https://www.nxtbook.com/accessintelligence/POWER/power-may-2019
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https://www.nxtbook.com/accessintelligence/POWER/power-january-2019
https://www.nxtbook.com/accessintelligence/POWER/power-december-2018
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https://www.nxtbook.com/accessintelligence/POWER/power-september-2018
https://www.nxtbook.com/accessintelligence/POWER/power-august-2018
https://www.nxtbook.com/accessintelligence/POWER/power-july-2018
https://www.nxtbook.com/accessintelligence/POWER/power-june-2018
https://www.nxtbook.com/accessintelligence/POWER/power-may-2018
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https://www.nxtbook.com/accessintelligence/POWER/power-january-2018
https://www.nxtbook.com/accessintelligence/POWER/power-december-2017
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https://www.nxtbook.com/accessintelligence/POWER/power-december-2013
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