Terrorists 1,000 and Enviros 5,000

From September 2001 Access to Energy

Few Americans will ever forget the images of the World Trade Center towers standing with large holes at floors 96 to 103 of Tower One and floors 87 to 93 of Tower Two. As smoke poured from the holes, some of the steel columns supporting the buildings could be seen glowing orange from the heat of the fires.

While hundreds of victims had already died on the affected floors, most of the occupants, with the help of rescue personnel, were making an orderly evacuation of the buildings. Those trapped above the fire were awaiting help.

Then, to the astonishment and horror of virtually the entire American nation, both buildings fell to the ground – killing an estimated 5,000 people and destroying additional buildings nearby.

In the aftermath, numerous news reports carried a statement by one of the architects of the Trade Towers saying that he did not expect the buildings to fall. ''I designed those buildings to survive the crash of a Boeing 707" was widely quoted.

Not so widely quoted – apparently spiked by most media – was the statement, often made about the Trade Towers in the 1970s by expert in the insulation of steel building columns Herbert Levine, that ''if a fire breaks out above the 64th floor, that building will fall down.'' See ''Asbestos Could Have Saved WTC Lives'' by Steven Milloy, Fox News, September 14, 2001 at www.foxnews.com.

The Trade Tower steel columns were designed to resist fire for at least 4 hours before losing the strength required to support the buildings. Emergency plans called for this four hours to be used to evacuate the buildings. It was expected that helicopters would be used to evacuate any people trapped on the roof and to put out the blaze. Yet, Tower One collapsed after one hour and forty minutes, while Tower Two collapsed after 56 minutes of fire.

Had the towers stood for four hours, an estimated 5,000 people would still be alive and the buildings would probably still be proudly standing - with large gashes in their upper floors. Why did they fall?

The buildings fell because the thermal insulation of their supporting columns did not work properly. The now familiar photos of these columns glowing orange shortly after the attack show this. Weakened by heat, the columns buckled. As the upper floors crashed into the lower floors, all of the floors cascaded downward. The lower columns were never designed to resist hundreds of thousands of tons of material dropped on them from above.

As described in Steven Milloy's article, which also quotes Harvard University physics professor Richard Wilson, skyscrapers like the Empire State Building have their steel columns insulated with concrete – which is expensive and difficult to use. In the late 1940s, Herbert Levine invented a spray fireproofing composed of asbestos and mineral wool. This invention was instrumental in allowing the construction of large steel framed buildings.

The Trade Tower design – the one referred to as able to resist the crash of a Boeing 707 – specified the use of asbestos insulation on the supporting columns. This was used on all columns up to the 64th floors. Then, however, in 1971 when the Trade Center Towers were still under construction, New York City banned this use of asbestos.

Although Herbert Levine's company failed to get the contract for asbestos coating the steel columns of the World Trade Center, he had confidence in those who did. His opinion, however, of the jury-rigged substitute insulation used after New York City banned asbestos is equally clear. ''If a fire breaks out above the 64th floor, that building will fall down.'' His prediction of 30 years ago was tragically correct.

The demonization of asbestos, a very useful and safe substance, has been written about many times in Access to Energy. (See the searchable CD-ROM of back issues of AtE for references.) Asbestos was an early victim of junk science and enviro fear propaganda. These enviros were joined by opportunistic lawyers and businessmen who reaped large profits from the anti-asbestos pogram. There was not a shred of evidence that insulating buildings with asbestos was harmful to human health. The American economy paid the price of this wasteful campaign and, on September 11, 2001, an additional 5,000 people in the World Trade Center paid with their lives.

Enviros are popular with the media and, in the current political atmosphere, anything that seems to mitigate the culpability of the terrorists is not desired news. So, you will not be reading much about the insulation of steel columns in the World Trade Center.

Those twin Towers were symbols of American strength. They were wonderful engineering achievements. Without discounting the 6,000 tragic deaths, I expect that many millions of Americans share my own personal sense of loss – of the buildings themselves. I greatly liked those buildings.

Our world is becoming increasingly surreal. What will happen next? Will terrorists take advantage of our lack of a civil defense system and kill millions of Americans with a biological attack or a rogue nuclear weapon? Governments thrive by convincing citizens that the things they fear can only be prevented by government action. Ours is now proposing to rid the world of all terrorists – a goal that will probably only partially be met. Unfortunately, we have little real protection – only insubstantial statements about national resolve.

The United States itself can be likened to the Trade Towers. They stood magnificently above the New York skyline even after they were attacked. Unknown to their admirers, however, enviro junk science and unprincipled opportunism had weakened their infrastructures. After a while, they fell.

Now, the United States has two large holes in its New York skyline. So far, America is still standing. Many decades of unprincipled opportunism – by politicians, by unethical businessmen, and by enviros and other liars – have, however, also weakened the infrastructure of the United States. Over the coming months, we shall see how serious this weakening has become.

From the deserted lumber mills and farms of the Northwest, to the intellectual wreckage of her failed tax-financed schools and moral decay of her body politic, America's infrastructure has been badly damaged. This damage can manifest itself in all sorts of subtle ways that could lead to disaster.

Still, there is enormous good and strength in the country we have inherited. Let us hope and pray that it will be sufficient.

To read the rest of this special issue of Access to Energy click here.