Brady Power Plant

The Brady Power Plant is one of a number of power generation facilities in the state of Nevada that takes advantage of that region's abundant geothermal sources. Three steam turbines and an air-cooled energy converter built by Ormat Technologies Inc. (which also owns and operates the Brady facility) have a total generative capacity of 26.5 megawatts.

The geothermal fluid used to run the turbines is pumped out of the ground at a temperature that is nearly 100 degrees Fahrenheit higher than the boiling point of water. This is heat that is leftover from the processes that created the planet over six billion years ago, and as such, poses a risk of injury to workers.

Such risks are common to all power plants. It is why asbestos was commonly used in the construction of such facilities prior to 1980. Before that time, health risks from asbestos was known to medical science, but the lawyers and spokespeople for the corporations that manufactured and marketed asbestos containing materials claimed they had had no knowledge of this prior to 1960, when medical reports began to be published.

It was a lie. In 1977, a litigator in an asbestos case uncovered documentation that confirmed a forty-year “conspiracy of silence” on the part of W.R. Grace, Johns-Manville and other major players in the asbestos industry. These corporations had been aware of the health hazards of asbestos as far back as the late 1930s, and had agreed to suppress this information as long as possible.

Power generation plant workers are at high risk from asbestos exposure and are substantially more likely to contract disease such as mesothelioma. In 2003, Puerto Rican researchers analyzed the chest x-rays of 1,100 workers who had worked at least fifteen years in such a facility. 13% of the images showed signs of asbestos disease.

Asbestos is more than a flame retardant; the “blue” and “brown” varieties most likely to cause asbestos cancers such as mesothelioma are also excellent electrical insulators. Asbestos-containing materials were used extensively throughout the construction of power plants prior to 1980. Some of the areas in which asbestos-containing materials were found include:

• fire doors
• electrical cloth
• pipe fittings and conduits
• insulation
• gasket materials
• turbines and other machinery

Those who were employed at a power generation plant prior to 1980 should get regular checkups if possible and discuss the asbestos exposure with their primary care physician. When diagnosed and treated early, asbestos cancer patients can survive for many years.

Because of its insulating properties, the mineral asbestos was used frequently within numerous industrial sites throughout the US. It is ironic that protecting lives was almost always one of the primary justifications for using asbestos in companies for the outcome was in fact to place people at risk of serious illness due to asbestos exposure. The health conditions caused by asbestos exposure include "miner's lung" and lung cancer; the largest risk of developing these conditions occurs when asbestos-containing materials become friable, releasing strands into the air where they are easy to inhale or ingest. Also, mesothelioma, a nearly always fatal cancer affecting the lining surrounding the lungs, is associated with even low levels of exposure to asbestos.

Because medical science has demonstrated the link between asbestos exposure and illnesses such as lung cancer, 21st-century employees are protected by laws that control how asbestos is used. Even as late as the 1970s, however, workers without protective equipment all too often toiled in places filled with airborne asbestos. Furthermore, if companies did not provide showers, workers inadvertently transported asbestos dust home with them in their work garments, which exposed others in their household to this dangerous substance.

Because conditions like asbestosis and mesothelioma may not appear until many years after asbestos exposure first occurs, those who were employed at asbestos-contaminated sites, as well as their partners and children, should discuss their history of contact with asbestos with their doctors no matter how far in the past they worked there. When caught early oncologists like Dr. David Sugarbaker in Boston, MA. at Brigham and Women’s Hospital can treat it with mesothelioma chemotherapy.

Sources

Bowker, Michael. Fatal Deception: The Terrifying True Story of How Asbestos is Killing America. New York: Touchstone, 2003.

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.

Nevada Renewable Energy & Energy Conservation Task Force. “Brady Geothermal Power Plant.”
http://www.nevadarenewables.org/?section=geothermal&subsection=projects&id=133