Legally Reviewed by Michael Throneberry, Attorney.
A coal-fired power plant built before the 1980s used asbestos almost everywhere heat or pressure was involved: boilers, turbines, pipes, pumps, valves and the gaskets that sealed them. Workers breathed the dust when that equipment was opened, repaired or rebuilt. A power plant asbestos case is built by tracing a worker’s years at the plant to the specific equipment, products and companies behind that dust.
This page walks through a power plant the way a case does: system by system, then step by step through the claim.
Why Was Asbestos Used in Power Plants?
A power plant burns fuel to boil water into high-pressure steam. The steam spins a turbine, and the turbine turns a generator. Nearly every part of that cycle runs hot.
Asbestos resisted heat, did not burn and was cheap. Manufacturers put it into insulation, cement, gaskets, packing and fireproofing for decades. Federal rules from OSHA now strictly limit how much asbestos dust workers may breathe, but many plants were built and maintained long before those limits took hold.
A Walk Through the Plant: Where Asbestos Was Found
The Boilers
The boiler is the heart of the plant. Large plants often had a main boiler for each generating unit and smaller auxiliary boilers for startup steam. Boilers were wrapped in insulation and lined with refractory brick and cement. Their access doors and inspection ports were sealed with gaskets.
Work that released dust: opening boiler doors, chipping out refractory, and replacing insulation and door gaskets during outages.
Soot Blowers, Ash Handling and Air Pollution Control
Burning coal leaves soot and ash. Soot blowers are lances that blast steam or air through the boiler to clean soot off the tubes. Ash handling systems move bottom ash and fly ash out of the plant. Air pollution control devices, especially electrostatic precipitators, pull fly ash out of the exhaust before it reaches the stack. All of this equipment ran hot and was sealed with gaskets, and precipitators had large access doors with gasketed seals.
Work that released dust: pulling and replacing gaskets on these systems and on precipitator doors.
Fans and Ducts
Forced-draft and induced-draft fans push air into the boiler and pull exhaust out. Their housings and the ducts around them were sealed and often insulated.
Work that released dust: opening fan housings and replacing gaskets.
The Steam Turbines
Steam from the boiler drives the turbines. Turbine casings were covered with insulation, and the joints and steam connections were sealed with gaskets.
Work that released dust: removing insulation to open a turbine during an overhaul and cleaning up afterward.
Condensers, Deaerators and Tanks
After the turbine, the steam is cooled back into water in the condenser. A deaerator strips oxygen from the water before it returns to the boiler. Tanks hold water and chemicals along the way. Each has doors, manways or flanges sealed with gaskets.
Work that released dust: removing and replacing condenser door gaskets, manway gaskets and flange gaskets.
Pumps, Valves, Steam Traps and Strainers
A plant has hundreds or thousands of pumps and valves. Pumps used packing around their shafts and gaskets at their flanges. Valves used packing around their stems and gaskets at their bodies and bonnets. Steam traps and strainers on the steam lines were gasketed too.
Work that released dust: cutting new gaskets from sheet material, scraping old gaskets off flanges, and digging out old packing. This was routine maintenance, not just outage work.
Pipe and Insulation
Miles of steam and hot water pipe ran through a plant. That pipe was covered in insulation and finished with insulating cement. The pipe itself could contain asbestos too. Asbestos-cement pipe and other asbestos-containing pipe were used throughout many plants, often for lines that carried acid or caustic chemicals.
Work that released dust: cutting, stripping and replacing pipe insulation, mixing insulating cement, and cutting or repairing asbestos-containing pipe.
Cooling Towers and Buildings
Some cooling towers used cement-board panels, fill or louvers that could contain asbestos. Structural steel in the plant was often sprayed with fireproofing.
Work that released dust: replacing or repairing broken louvers and panels, and any work that disturbed sprayed fireproofing.
Who Breathed the Dust?
The trades who did the hands-on work carried the most risk: boilermakers, pipefitters, insulators, millwrights and mechanics. Our page on power plant worker asbestos exposure lists the job titles.
But many power plant cases involve workers who never handled asbestos themselves. Operators opened and closed valves, walked the units and led other trades through the plant. Electricians and laborers worked a few feet from crews cutting gaskets and tearing out insulation. This is called bystander exposure. Breathing the same dust over years of normal work can support a claim.
Contractors and Specialty Trades
Plants brought in outside contractors and subcontractors for specialized work: building and rebuilding boilers, insulation crews, refractory work, and large construction and overhaul jobs. The nature of that work meant tearing out and replacing the very materials that held asbestos. Plant employees who worked alongside these crews breathed the dust they raised, and the contractors’ own workers were exposed as well.
Outages Brought the Heaviest Exposure
Plants take units offline on a schedule for repairs. During an outage, many trades open boilers, turbines, pumps and valves at the same time, often in tight spaces. A plant with several units can run outages year after year, so a long career can include dozens of them.
How a Power Plant Asbestos Case Is Built
Mesothelioma often shows up 20 to 50 years after the exposure that caused it, according to the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. That means the case has to rebuild work done decades ago. Most power plant cases follow these steps.
- Map the work history. Which plants, which years, which jobs, and how many outages. Social Security earnings records and union records help pin down the dates.
- Confirm the site in public records. Asbestos bankruptcy trusts keep lists of approved exposure sites. State boiler inspection records list the boilers at a plant, who made them and when they were built.
- Map the equipment. Walk through the plant system by system, like the tour above, and note what the worker worked on or worked near.
- Identify the products and companies. Match that equipment to the companies that made it and the asbestos products used with it, such as gaskets, packing, insulation and cement.
- Gather witnesses. Coworkers can confirm where a person worked and what was going on around them.
- File the claims. Depending on the facts, that can mean claims against several asbestos trusts and a lawsuit against companies still in business, often at the same time.
As an example, power plant cases often involve boilers built by Combustion Engineering or Riley Stoker, steam turbines built by General Electric, and insulation made by Owens Corning. These are only a few of the names. Over years of power plant cases, our firm has identified and resolved claims against many more companies that made power plant equipment and products.
Deadlines apply to every one of these claims. Our mesothelioma statute of limitations page explains how they work. For a list of plants by state, see our power plant asbestos locations page.
Common Questions About Power Plant Asbestos Cases
I was a power plant operator, not a tradesman. Can I still have a case?
Yes, you may. Operators often worked beside crews who cut gaskets, repacked valves and removed insulation, especially during outages. Breathing that dust as a bystander over years of work can cause mesothelioma. Bystander exposure is a recognized basis for both asbestos trust claims and lawsuits.
How can anyone prove what equipment was at my plant decades ago?
The proof usually comes from several places at once. Asbestos trusts keep lists of approved sites, state boiler inspection records list boilers and their makers, and coworkers remember the equipment they worked on. Your own memory of the plant fills in the rest.
The company that made the equipment went bankrupt. Is that the end of my claim?
No. Many asbestos companies set up bankruptcy trusts to pay people who got sick, and those trusts still pay valid claims today. Other companies tied to the same plant may still be in business. A single plant often leads to several sources of compensation.
Does my family have a claim if I carried dust home?
Sometimes, yes. Asbestos dust traveled home on work clothes, hair and boots. A spouse who washed those clothes may have breathed the fibers. This secondhand exposure can support a claim of its own.
Talk With a Lawyer About a Power Plant Asbestos Case
If you or a loved one worked at a power plant and has been diagnosed with mesothelioma, we can review your work history for free. We handle these cases on contingency, so you pay no attorney fees unless we recover money for you. Contact us for a free case review.