Marnie Surfaceblow: It’s Ghostbusting Time … Again

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. Today, the fictional series continues through Marmy’s granddaughter, Marnie, who is an engineering wiz in her own right.

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Everything happens for a reason, and fantastic events often have mundane causes.

Two women silently waited in their rental car next to a guard hut, sheltered under spreading banana tree leaves. Sunlight filtered through the leaf canopy, making shadows play as a cool breeze swept them the scent of the nearby ocean bay. Marnie Surfaceblow, vice president of Surfaceblow & Associates International, relaxed in the passenger seat, eyes closed and humming “Roller Skates” by Steel Pulse while tapping the rhythm on her hard hat with her manicured nails. Maya Sharma, Marnie’s lead field engineer, rested her tablet on the steering wheel and scrolled through plant data received that morning.

A jovial plant guard rapped on the window, handed each of them a plant visitor badge and a cold carton of coconut water, and said, “Welcome to Jamaica, misses! Many blessings, and hoping you can remove the ghosts from this place!”

“Thank you ever so much,” replied Marnie with a smile. Nodding at Maya, Marnie added, “You heard the gentleman; there’s ghosts to be busted!”

1. The Jamaican biomass power plant was one of the most picturesque facilities Marnie and Maya had ever seen. Source: POWER

Maya carefully zig-zagged their car down a score of lazy switchbacks under the forest canopy, descending more than 100 meters where the most scenic Rankine cycle power station she’d ever seen was nestled on a plateau in the cleft of a steep forest valley. The boiler housing faced an impossibly blue tropical bay, while on the forest side an enormous biomass pile surrounded environmental equipment, the stack, the switchyard, and a row of small cooling towers. The plant even carried artistic flair, with the boiler housing, outbuildings, and cooling towers painted with jungle scenes (Figure 1). Marnie bounced in her seat like a little kid, taking photos of every painting until Maya parked in front of the engineering office.

Maya turned to Marnie, giving her “The Look,” then said, “Ma’am, I must ask, why did you choose another power station claimed to be infested with ghosts?”

Marnie laughed joyously, “Because when science meets the supernatural, and engineering meets the ectoplasm, that’s where we have the most fun!”

Maya didn’t share Marnie’s enthusiasm. “I hope you do not intend to perform experiments on myself or others, as you did at the haunted hydroelectric power station,” she replied.

Smile fading, Marnie soberly shook her head. “I should have given you some warning about that. Because of the nature of the infrasound effect, I had to create an ominous and foreboding air to ensure others would see the ghosts. If I could turn back time, I would have chosen differently.” Pausing, Marnie bit her lower lip, then added, “For this haunting, I have a couple ideas, but there’s too many unknowns. I mainly took the job because our client from the haunted hydro plant, Ms. Fiona Maus, called for help.”

“Oh?” Maya responded with surprise. “How did she move from a hydroelectric station in West Virginia to a biomass station in Jamaica?”

Marnie shrugged. “Our friends at Hekmatyar Holdings have been buying renewable energy plants around the globe for their renewable-powered crypto currency. After they bought Fiona’s plant, they promoted her to their global engineering troubleshooting team … and, speak of the devil, here she is now, walking toward our car.”

More Ghosts

After greetings and a short stroll to the plant canteen, the conversation turned to the matter at hand. “When I realized the situation with the ghosts here was totally crazy, you were the first person I thought of,” Fiona said, as she smiled wickedly at Marnie.

“Thanks, I think,” replied Marnie, warily looking over her liter mug of Blue Mountain coffee. Maya sat with her herbal tea, looking over photographs and videos of the ghostly lights on her tablet with some disbelief.

Fiona continued, “You must help me out here Marnie. This problem is turning my hair grey!”

Marnie smirked, then replied, “Don’t blame ghosts for your hair, hon. I saw your roots the last time we met.”

Acting fast to head off another confrontation, Maya interjected, “Excuse me, but the plant briefing is about to start, so let us all get into character, so to speak.”

As if on cue the plant staff began filing into the canteen, with Plant Manager Carlton Barrett in the lead. When everyone found a drink and their seat, Carlton gave friendly greetings to Marnie and Maya, then told his story. He’d worked on the plant during construction, hauling rock for the seawall as a teenager. He used his earnings to attend university, returned as an engineer, and had remained for 43 years.

“I thought of retirement at 40 years,” Carlton explained, “but the ghosts appeared and I decided retirement could wait. Besides, the people at this plant, we are all from the same community—we are family.”

After a smattering of respectful applause from the staff, Fiona formally introduced Marnie and Maya, then laid out the general situation, calling on engineering and operations leads to provide critical testimony.

Lead night operator Abigay Rogers was the first to speak. “I have only been here half the time of Mr. Barrett, but for almost all that time there were no serious problems. As was said, three years ago my night crew reported seeing spirits—balls of light around the switchyard, then around the building, even high in the air. I thought they were drunken fools, then the next night I saw the ghosts myself. I investigated from the operations side, and the sole correlation is the ghosts only appear when we are near full load, and only between October and February.”

Fuels Engineer Winston Kirk offered more background information. “The plant was designed to simply incinerate excess bagasse, banana leaf, and other agricultural waste. But that was too much energy to waste, so we changed the design to a biomass waste-to-energy plant. And this plant was a godsend,” he said. “We only generate 45 megawatts on the best days, but that has transformed the local villages from having power only half the day, to now being a backbone of a growing community of people, businesses, and tourists—the steep mountains and thick jungle are very popular. And increased local agriculture means we no longer run out of biomass. Have you seen the mighty pile we keep onsite? All the while, our old boiler, she runs like a fine watch.”

“I hate to be in opposition to you, my friend, but the boiler tube failures are increasing swiftly,” interjected Maintenance Supervisor Devan Clarke. “Yes, we have abundance of biomass to take us through the winter now, but sulphur content is rising, and chlorine is rising even faster. You forget our yearly boiler outages, once but two or three weeks, are now more than a month repairing boiler tubes.”

Ghostly Problems

Fiona stepped in to redirect the conversation. “Tell us about the details of the ghosts. Who has the most information on them?”

Marva Jefferson, a wizened facilities engineer with eyes sharper than even Marnie’s, raised her hand. “I tell you, the lights were first seen late November, three years gone. The next year early November, last year mid-October, and now with start of October. They disappear in January or February. They were first seen in the switchyard, so everybody thinks it is corona discharge, yes? Except they only come at night, often after midnight, and only in late autumn.”

“Excuse me,” Maya leaned in. “I saw your images and videos—they are stunning—but if it was merely corona, why are they often seen away from the high-voltage power lines? You have inspected the transmission lines and insulation for damage, yes?”

“Of course,” Devan said. “We find some minor corona damage, but given the level of effect witnessed, not nearly as bad as it could be.”

“Has anyone been injured or has any plant equipment been injured from the lights?” asked Marnie.

An engineer in the back of the room replied, “When the lights come, we cannot use plant radios, and the continuous emissions monitoring system has been damaged when the ghosts dance on the stack. Several times we have tripped due to false fire or CO alarms.”

Another engineer spoke up, “The ghosts keep my radio from playing the live cricket broadcasts from India!” As several in the room laughed at the admission, Maya leaned toward Marnie and whispered, “Ma’am, we must do something. Disrupting cricket is simply abominable.”

“I find cricket abominable,” Marnie whispered back, “excepting the coffee interval.” As Maya mouthed “tea interval” and shook her head, Marnie raised her voice over the chattering about cricket to ask again, “Have there been any other strange effects, or any risks to personnel?”

“Look,” Marva directly addressed Marnie and Maya, “we know what people think of Jamaica outside of our country—reggae, weed, superstition. But we are engineers and scientists. We know these are almost certainly not ghosts, rather, corona, St. Elmo’s Fire, whatever. No, no one has been injured directly, but when you are in the boiler structure and suddenly a violet ball of light is flying past you—it startles you, creates tension, and that can lead to accidents.”

Fiona leaned over to Marnie and asked softly, “So, Miss Designer Smarty Pants, how are you going to solve this problem?”

Marnie whispered in return, “With aplomb, of course, and a hefty invoice to follow.”

Touring the Site

The rest of the day consisted of a lengthy site tour, starting in the control room where Maya harvested a few terabytes of plant data to analyze. The plant manager, engineering leads, and Fiona joined Marnie and Maya, as they poked into every area of the site possible. She noted, “Unfortunately, the grid needs us online, so we cannot let you inspect the switchyard. In a week or two, perhaps?”

“Let’s put a pin in that idea,” Marnie replied, then pointing toward the row of cooling towers, asked, “Why didn’t you just use the ocean for cooling, instead of that little freshwater river coming down the valley?”

Carlton smiled. “Many reasons. The bay has rare sea life that was at risk, and since we are shaded in this valley and have cool night breezes down from the mountains, the river was more than enough for our small power plant. And when our plant was built, a titanium condenser that could withstand seawater corrosion was much too dear.”

Maya, however, was focused on the fuel pile, specifically, on the ground downhill from it that was bleached white with salts. “Sir, does not the higher chlorine from recent biomass cause problems with water runoff? The ground is stained with it in fact.”

Fiona was the one to answer, however. “One of the first things I did when I came here was install a runoff catch basin and treatment plant. It doesn’t solve all the problem, but we catch at least 80% of the runoff—and there are a lot of chlorides in this biomass.”

Carlton nodded. “A few years ago, this was not a problem. Now, we must adapt. I am grateful we wash some of the chlorine from the biomass, otherwise, our tube corrosion problem would worsen,” he said.

“Why is the chlorine content increasing? Are you burning a different fuel?” Marnie asked, taking notes furiously.

Fuels being Winston’s forte, he replied, “When the economy expanded, so did fertilizer use, especially high-chloride types. Our fuel chloride levels were once less than 0.1%. Now, we often exceed 0.5%.”

“Holy Hannah!” Marnie exclaimed. “I’m surprised you have any boiler tubes left at those levels!”

Carlton soberly nodded his head. “At this rate, I wonder if the plant shall outlast me,” he said.

Maya, who had been talking to another group of plant staff, returned and excitedly said, “Ma’am, I just learned two interesting facts. First, in about six more hours, we can have a perfect viewing of the ghosts from that rise between the cooling towers and the stack. Second, I was told one worker here can predict when the ghosts will appear!”

Carlton laughed. “You must mean Moses Tosh. Somehow, he can predict ghost sightings, but only within an hour or two.”

Marnie’s enthusiasm abounded, as she said, “Fiona, guess what? We’re camping out on that ghost central viewing spot! We need camp chairs, blankets, snacks, several liters of coffee, and Mr. Tosh to join us. If all goes well, tonight you will have all the answers you seek, and without me even breaking out my tarot cards!”

A Late Night Outing

At day’s end, the tours finished. Marnie and Maya worked on research, while Fiona assembled an excellent camping spot. “I won the Gold Award in Girl Scouts,” she replied, when praised on her effort.

2. Marnie was excited to see the ghosts, but even more excited to have popcorn and coffee for the event. Source: POWER

At 11:30 p.m., Marnie (Figure 2), Maya, Fiona, and Carlton sat sharing coffee, snacks, and stories. Cold air flowing down the valley and out to sea made the night surprisingly chilly. Marnie pointed and said, “See that massive cooling tower drift, Maya. It’s swirling about with vortices from that giant biomass pile disturbing the air flow.”

“I do not know what that word means, ma’am, but it is certainly a very unusual airflow,” Maya replied puzzled.

“It was notable before,” Carlton commented, “but never caused such a problem. The biomass pile must be to blame. The drift hasn’t been a problem, however, since our cooling towers run perpendicular to the air flow. Ah, here’s Moses now.”

Moses Tosh, an elderly but spry electrical technician, joined them, and introductions were made. Maya offered him her chair, but Moses laughed. “Letting a young woman give me her chair would queer any pitch at chivalry,” he retorted. With Marnie’s prompting, Moses told the story of his ghost encounters.

“I do not predict the ghosts, I only see before any others—sometimes, almost two hours before anyone else. Even if I point to them, no one can see them until later. But, then, I have really clear vision; every color is much more alive than ever before.” Pausing to point, Moses said, “See that one on that power pylon, by the big insulator? It’s been there at least five minutes. There’s one on the stack rim too.”

Although they tried hard, no one else saw the ghosts. Moses noted when new ones appeared and where they moved, then, suddenly Maya yelled, “There! Halfway up the stack and in the cooling tower drift!” Moses nodded, and as everyone watched the same spot, each in turn was able to see the first ghost light—a deep violet ball, drifting lazily along a steel guy wire. Others then appeared, violet and blue, and eerie. Marnie was the first one to hear their sound, reporting, “It sounds like bacon frying in a skillet. It’s definitely some type of corona.” As they grew more numerous over several minutes, others heard the tell-tale corona sound as well.

An idea grabbed Marnie. She removed a small flashlight from her purse, pointing it at the ground nearby. “Mr. Tosh, can you see the light I’m shining?” she asked.

“Sure can, it looks like the ghosts when they’re young,” he said. After asking the group, Marnie found that no one else could see the beam from her flashlight. She then inquired, “Mr. Tosh, I will bet a steak dinner that you’ve had lens replacement surgery for cataracts.”

Stunned, Moses nodded and replied, “Now, how’d you know that? I had both eyes done about three or four years ago.”

Marnie laughed and clapped her hands with glee. “How wonderful! Even I can’t believe my supernatural science skills!” she exclaimed.

“Preternatural, ma’am,” added Maya sotto voce.

The Big Reveal

“Normally, I like making a big reveal in front of the entire staff, like the end of a Christie novel, but this is so cool it can’t wait, so I’ll tell you all about the ghosts,” said Marnie. Turning to Maya, she asked, “Is there any part of it you would like to explain, my erudite engineer?”

Maya frowned and shook her head. “No ma’am, for this reveal, the stage is yours,” she replied.

“It started with your fuel. Just as your biomass supply increased, the reason for the greater supply—greater high-chloride fertilizer use—was changing your fuel quality. Then, you had to move your stockpile, and space being at a premium, you put it by the cooling towers. Because you have more cooling than you need, you didn’t notice problems from lack of cooling, but the new stockpile interfered with your air flow, causing the increased cooling tower drift and site relative humidity. Are you all still with me?” Marnie asked.

“Hanging in there, Miss Marple,” replied Fiona with a smirk.

Maya leaned toward Fiona and whispered, “Ma’am, just for note, Ms. Surfaceblow likens herself more as Poirot.”

Fiona’s snort of amusement didn’t stop Marnie’s reveal. “With no chloride control system at your plant, your stack plume is sending much more hydrochloric acid into the surrounding air. With the night winds providing a good amount of mixing, you now have an environment that encourages corona discharge, and not just at the switchyard,” Marnie reported.

“Opportunistic corona generation,” said Fiona. “That I did not expect.”

“Now, as to Mr. Tosh’s ability to see the ghosts before anyone else, I shined a near-ultraviolet flashlight I happened to have with me, and Moses could see the light. Why? A side effect of some lens replacement surgeries is that the artificial lens material passes through near-ultraviolet light to the retina, which can register near ultraviolet light provided it’s not blocked by the lens. The fact that he can see the corona start to form as long as two hours before it reaches full strength and starts emitting visible light tells me that the conditions have to be just right for the ghosts to appear,” explained Marnie.

Amazed at Marnie’s deduction, Fiona stepped forward and shook her hand. “First it was infrasound, now it’s ultraviolet causing the ghosts. My report to the Hekmatyar’s will be glowing with praise,” she said.

“Thank you, Fiona. That means a lot,” Marnie acknowledged. “Maya, tell Carlton his options for ghostbusting.”

“They are straightforward, sir,” replied Maya. “Move or shrink your biomass pile, and pre-wash water-soluble chlorides from the biomass, which will also benefit your boiler tubes. As a last resort, you could redesign your cooling towers to reduce drift.”

The ghost lights were becoming very active, and as Marnie recorded video on her phone, she added, “You could always set up bleachers on this rise, sell snacks, charge admission, and monetize the supernatural!” When the laughter ended, everyone on the rise returned to watching the ghosts play under the October stars.

—Una Nowling, PE is an adjunct professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.