Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBS) comprise a family of more than 200 chemical compounds. They were used in America from the late 20s to the mid-70s in hundreds of applications, many of which made use of two PCB properties: They are inflammable, and they are excellent insulators
¾ both thermal and electrical. (As a rule of thumb, but not an exact law, a good thermal insulator is also a good electrical insulator.)This made them eminently suitable for insulation in office buildings, hospitals, factories and schools, since they substantially reduced fire hazards. More important for the case at hand, they replaced mineral off in large electric transformers and capacitors, drastically reducing the risk of electric fires. For example, the Denver substation almost certainly caught fire by a breakdown of electric strength, i.e., an electric arc (sparks) forming across the insulation. That ignited the mineral on and exploded the transformer. Had it been filled with PCBS, the electric breakdown might not have been prevented, but there would have been nothing to catch fire.
So significant was the reduction in fire hazard that many city codes banned transformers and capacitors using mineral oils and required them to be replaced by equipment of the PCB type.
But PCBs are very stable, and therefore persistent in the environment.
They accumulate in the food chain and eventually appear in body fat. This is not necessarily dangerous, but it is an ideal tool of the environmental propagandists for inflaming emotions and fanning paranoia. And their alarm seemed vindicated in 1968, when some 1300 people became ill in Yusho, Japan, after eating rice contaminated by a PCB compound. Apart from less serious symptoms, there were liver disorders, some smaller than usual babies born to exposed mothers, and eventually (over a period of 11 years) 31 deaths for known causes among the patients, of which somewhat more than normal were due to cancer (though 31 cases are too little to draw significant statistical conclusions). This was more than enough for the media to scream bloody murder, and PCBs were eventually banned; in particular, utilities were forced into the expensive process of changing their substations and other equipment from PCB back again to oil.
But as in the case of Love Canal (in which nothing happened while Hooker was responsible, and little after local government took over
¾ except the trauma and other psychological stress induced by the media ghouls), as in the cases of DDT, dioxin, EDB, antibiotics in animal feed, cyclamates, and legions of others substances, this trial by press with the environmentalist charlatans as jury brought in a false verdict. To this day the American Industrial Hygiene Assn. classifies PCBs as "slightly toxic to practically non-toxic," and a 1982 study by Drill, Firess & Co (an independent toxology consulting firm) found no convincing evidence linking PCBs to cancer or other diseases in tests with rats and other animals. The 1968 accident in Japan, it is now generally accepted among serious students of the disaster, was not caused by PCB directly: though usually a very stable compound, the Japanese PCB was used in an air conditioner, and due to a number of freak circumstances including high temperature, some of the PCB was decomposed into genuinely toxic compounds, and it was these that did the damage.Yet PCBs remain banned and the "controversy" continues. If Monsanto were to market a toxic chemical as safe, it would imperil its profits, and a consulting firm giving it a clean bill of health would lose, at the very least, its reputation. But what would the environmentalist lobbies and litigators lose if they stopped beating the alarm? The very reason for their existence.
Much of the information above is taken from PCBs: Is the cure worth the cost?, by the American Council on Science and Health [$2 from ACSH, 47 Maple St., Summit, NJ 07901; for $2 each you might also order Dioxin in the environment, Antibiotics in animal feed, and Ethylene Dibromide (EDB).] This report quotes part of the regulatory cost for replacing PCBs, paid via your utility bill, as $228 million.
But it is always precarious to compare health risks to economic benefits, since sooner or later one runs into the dollar cost of a human life. It is far simpler to compare risks to risks
¾those of the alternative.Use PCBs as insulators in large power transformers and you run a risk of disease
¾a risk that is minuscule, and probably nonexistent. Or use oil and you run the risk of major fires like the one in Denver.They are fires set, in effect, by the environmental arsonists.
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Vol. 12, No. 7
Newsletter: Access to Energy Newsletter Archive Volume: Issues Issue/No.: Vol. 12, No. 7 Date: November 29, 2004 01:59 PM Title: Gratitude and contempt
Copyright © 2004 - Access to Energy Newsletter Archive
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