Power Plant Workers

Today, most of us take the presence of electricity for granted. We just switch on our lights or appliances and expect them to work. However, it takes myriad individuals to insure that we have the power we need to live and operate in our homes, offices, and factories.

Power plants - operations that insure our supply of electricity - come in a variety of sizes. Some are quite small; others are massive. But they all need employees that have the ability to operate the machinery inside and the systems that keep electricity flowing.

At most power plants, there are three categories of workers:

Operators

The operator decides which boilers and generators should be in use and is generally responsible for their upkeep as well.

Distributors

The distributor controls the flow of electricity that is produced.

Dispatchers

A dispatcher is like a traffic cop. He/she decides where the electricity is going and just how much each region needs to operate at full capacity. It is necessary for the dispatcher to be able to anticipate the power needs of the community served by a particular plant.

Because of their important role, power plants are manned 24 hours a day, 7 days per week so that electricity remains uninterrupted.

Power Plant Workers and Asbestos

Those who toil at power plants, no matter what their job, are constantly attuned to concerns about heat and fire. A fire at a power plant constitutes a large-scale disaster and can cripple a community for a long time.

Because heat and fire have always been a concern, asbestos was used widely in yesterday's power plants, especially as insulation. While the mere presence of asbestos did not constitute a hazard, procedures that damaged asbestos could easily produce clouds of asbestos dust and release dangerous fibers into the air. For example, maintenance of generators or boilers may have involved hammering or cutting of asbestos insulation, making toxic dust a regular occurrence.

Asbestos was found not only in insulation but also in gaskets used to seal pumps and valves or in fire-proof ceiling and floor tiles that were commonplace in the power plants of days-gone-by. Many former power plant workers will attest to the fact that asbestos dust was a given in their place of employment and that some floors were even grated to allow the hazardous dust to pass through.

Power plant workers were usually not given masks to prevent inhalation of asbestos. In some cases, however, workers wore gear to protect them from excessive heat. Unfortunately, however, these masks, aprons, and gloves may have been made from asbestos-containing materials, further exposing the workers to the dangerous mineral.

Do power plants still contain asbestos? Alarmingly, the answer is "yes" in many cases. Some power plants throughout the nation have been updated and asbestos has been removed, but many of the country's power plants, especially in towns where renovation is unaffordable, still contain asbestos materials.

Last modified: December 09 2009.