Posted on 12/07/2001 9:16:27 AM PST by chkoreff
When you build a skyscraper, you must heavily insulate the steel beams. This prevents them from melting in case of fire, or at least delays the melting long enough for people to escape the building.
When the Empire State Building was built, its steel beams were insulated with concrete. That was a very expensive and difficult process.
In the late 1940s, a man named Herbert Levine invented a spray fireproofing composed of asbestos and mineral wool.
The World Trade Center was designed to have this asbestos insulation on its steel beams. The contractors completed the first 64 floors using this technique. In 1971, when they reached the 64th floor, the city of New York decided to ban asbestos because of environmental concerns. Consequently, all the floors above the 64th were insulated with a less effective substitute.
As the buildings neared completion in 1973, Herbert Levine said this:
"If a fire breaks out above the 64th floor, that building will fall down."
Nearly 30 years later, on September 11, 2001, fire broke out above the 64th floor of both World Trade Center buildings. The steel beams melted within two hours, and both buildings fell down.
To the environmentalists and junk scientists I say: thanks a pantload, guys. I hope you're happy now.
Click to see the the full article .
So, my hypothesis is, maybe the info released at trial that was subsequently used by peaceful Muslims (aka terrorists) to bring the WTC down, was the info about column insulation.
I can say with some confidence that they are very happy now.
They are not pro-environment, they are just anti-people.
Did the Ban on Asbestos Lead to Loss of Life?
By JAMES GLANZ and ANDREW C. REVKIN (NYT)
Early in the trade centers' construction, builders abandoned asbestos as a fireproofing material. Now some scientists wonder about the decision.See NY Times article for continuation.
As the World Trade Center was being built in the late 1960's and early 1970's, scientists were learning that asbestos fibers in materials commonly used to fireproof steel beams could cause cancer in workers and bystanders who were intensively exposed to the fibers, especially around mines and manufacturing plants dealing with asbestos.
Anticipating a ban, the builders stopped using the materials by the time they reached the 40th floor of the north tower, the first one to go up.
Now some engineers and scientists — including at least one whose research supported an asbestos ban in New York City — are haunted by a troubling question: were the substitute materials as effective in protecting against fire as the asbestos-containing materials they replaced?
Asbestos, a fibrous, silicate mineral, was highly prized as a fireproofing component because of its high melting point and its resistance to chemical breakdown. It also conducts little heat and its fibers create strong, supple materials.
The question haunts those engineers and scientists, but not because they think asbestos insulation might have ultimately preserved the towers' steel beams and trusses, which buckled in Tuesday's infernos, causing the towers to collapse.
Virtually as one, experts on the development, testing and use of fireproofing materials say no standard treatment of the steel, asbestos or otherwise, could have averted the collapse of the towers in the extraordinarily hot and violent blaze.
But some wonder whether asbestos insulation might have kept the towers intact long enough for more people to have escaped. And more important, they say the disaster at the World Trade Center exposes a gap in their knowledge about many fireproofing materials.
Some of the asbestos insulation might have been removed at before September 11th, too.
From overlawyered.com archives.
Newsweek/MSNBC.. : "Subsequently, the asbestos was encapsulated in a honeycomb of plastic, and in the early '80s, after a 'fastidious, painstaking process,' it was entirely removed, he [Tozzoli] says. 'If they are finding asbestos in the ash, it is not coming from us.'"The Port Authority, the buildings' owner, engaged in prolonged litigation with asbestos manufacturers and its own insurers seeking to shift to them $600 million in costs of asbestos abatement. (British Asbestos Newsletter, Spring 1996, item #2; Mound, Cotton, Wollan & Greenglass, "What's New", "Cases").
Reader Maximo Blake writes to say: "To the best of my knowledge a majority of the asbestos coating the beams and elsewhere was removed in the 1980s. My information comes from a Port Authority employee who supervised the removal."
Just to add a bit more complication, a web search reveals a relatively recent Sept. 12, 2000 entry from the Port Authority's Construction Advertisements Archive in which the authority solicits sealed bids for ongoing "Removal and Disposal of Vinyl Asbestos Floor Tiles and Other Incidental Asbestos-Containing Building Materials" at the WTC, with bids due October 17, 2000.
Not necessarily true.
Let's say you are driving a Ford Pinto in 1973. A drunk driver rear-ends your car, and the gas tank explodes, killing you. The drunk driver would not be the "only" one to blame for your death.
Your loved ones would blame the drunk driver and the people who designed the faulty gas tank.
Precisely. Another example is the ban on DDT, which has caused the deaths of a million people from malaria. Thank you, Rachel Carson. Indeed, it is a "Silent Spring" when your village has been wiped out by malaria.
Another example might be excessively stringent restrictions on arsenic in drinking water. You can waste millions of dollars achieving ridiculously low levels, and maybe save a couple of lives. But those millions of dollars might save thousands if spent in other ways. That is also an example of "opportunity cost".
Thank you. Your hurricane example is still valid, and it got me thinking.
Sometimes, there are materials that are too dangerous and need to be banned. Not always,but indeed sometimes.
Ooh, the plot thickens.
I went to the article at OverLawyered.com and tried to follow the link to the Port Authority directive. The link is broken. I wonder if anyone has a copy of this document?
Those planes were traveling at over 300 mph, and the pilots weren't that experienced. I'm surprised that they made two direct hits given those circumstances, let alone aim for some specific floor. If they tried to hit the base of the buildings, they would have had to fly over the other buildings then make a last moment dive, which is impossible given the speeds involved and the spacing of the surrounding buildings.
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