Barry Power Plant
With a generating capacity of over 2.6 million kilowatts from seven generating units, the Barry Power Plant is a coal and gas-fired facility located along the Mobile River in Bucks, Alabama.
While coal is the most polluting fuel, engineers at the Barry Plant have plans in place to sequester up to 150,000 tons of the plant's carbon dioxide waste to a location 9,000 feet beneath the earth's surface. The project is experimental at this point; Barry generates almost 13 million tons of CO2 every year, of which the amount to be sequestered represents less than 1%. However, if the project proves successful, it could be expanded to other coal-fired plants to include all such greenhouse gas emissions from such power generation facilities.
The $175 million dollar project is being financed in part by the federal Department of Energy; the technology is being developed by the Heavy Industries division of the Japanese conglomerate, Mitsubishi. According to a spokesman at Alabama Power, the project represents “largest experiment of its kind in the world.”
Of course, CO2 is not the only problem that exists at these plants; nitrous oxide and sulfur dioxide are also major pollutants, but with present technology, cannot be similarly sequestered underground.
Another problem at Barry in years past involves the use of asbestos. Asbestos fibers, which have been used extensively in the construction of electrical energy generation plants due to their resistance to both heat and electrical current, are unlikely to pose a major health hazard to the general public. However, they have been proven to be a serious health risk to those who work inside them. Workers who have been negligently exposed should seek legal counsel from a mesothelioma lawyer.
A Puerto Rican research study carried out in 2003 and published in 2007 showed that thirteen percent of the power plant workers examined as having the signs of asbestos disease, even when factors such as tobacco use were eliminated from the data. This asbestos insulation was used in fire doors, around conduits and inside the machinery itself.
Although harmless in its solid state, such asbestos insulation tends to become brittle with age and begins to crumble into dust. In this condition, it is called friable; asbestos dust is released into the environment, where it is not only inhaled by workers, but can settle in the hair and on the clothing. This has been proven to subject family members to secondary exposure when such asbestos materials are carried into the home.
During much of the last century, it was extremely common for industrial sites of all types to use the naturally occurring, fibrous mineral known as asbestos because it excelled at blocking fire. While using asbestos was generally considered a way to protect human life, it unfortunately all too often had the opposite effect. Exposure to asbestos in the workplace has resulted in serious illness for far too many people. The reason so many employees have
fallen ill from illnesses such as pleural plaques and cancer is that when humans inhale or ingest asbestos strands, the mineral remains in internal organs; once there, the sharp, microscopic spikes damage tissues. The most serious of the asbestos-related disorders is mesothelioma, a cancer that affects the mesothelium, the tissue that lines the abdominal cavity; it is almost always a death sentence for those who contract it.
Today, we understand the dangers associated with asbestos exposure, and health and safety statutes ensure the well-being of those who work with or near this material. In the past, however, laborers without respiratory equipment commonly toiled in areas thick with asbestos dust. Spouses and children were also subjected to asbestos exposure if companies did not offer showers, as workers carried asbestos home in their work garments.
As asbestos-related illnesses like asbestosis and mesothelioma don't manifest until a very long time after a person first is exposed to asbestos, those who were employed at asbestos-contaminated sites, as well as their partners and children, are encouraged to discuss their history of exposure to asbestos with their physicians no matter how far back they worked there. Those who have been exposed to asbestos should seek medical attention at any of the mesothelioma clinics in their area.
Sources
Alabama Power. “Generating Plants.”
http://www.alabamapower.com/about/plants.asp
Cabrera-Santiago, Manuel et al. “Prevalence of Asbestos-Related Disease Among Electrical Power Generation Workers in Puerto Rico.” Presentation at American Public Health Association Annual Meeting, 2007.
Raines, Ben. “Barry power plant to pump greenhouse gases underground in 'largest experiment of its kind.'” Birmingham Press-Register (21 May 2009)
