Perhaps the BEST B1G Forum anywhere, here at College Football Fan Site, CFB51!!!

The thing about asbestos is that it was a really good material that isn’t easily replaced. Since I work in industry we have several facilities that still have asbestos in them. Insulation, building materials, etc. 

Anyways we had some valves ( 36” valves) that were very special. These valves were 30+ years old. They handled what we call cracked gas in hydrocarbon production, which was high heat and mixed with steam. 

We took these valves out to be rebuilt and immediately started having problems when they re-installed. It turns out that the original valves had asbestos in the valve seat and they could not rebuild with asbestos. We always had issues with them sticking and leaking from then on. They finally installed a completely different valve. 

The thing about asbestos is that it was a really good material that isn’t easily replaced. Since I work in industry we have several facilities that still have asbestos in them. Insulation, building materials, etc.

Anyways we had some valves ( 36” valves) that were very special. These valves were 30+ years old. They handled what we call cracked gas in hydrocarbon production, which was high heat and mixed with steam.

We took these valves out to be rebuilt and immediately started having problems when they re-installed. It turns out that the original valves had asbestos in the valve seat and they could not rebuild with asbestos. We always had issues with them sticking and leaking from then on. They finally installed a completely different valve.

Yup. Really useful stuff. Probably still the best heat/fire resistant material out there. Too bad it kills people with an incurable cancer that slowly suffocates people to death. The industry folks make a decent argument about the relative cost to society of (a) preventing fire and other heat-related morbidity vs. (b) cancer-related deaths. But we Americans don't take to well to the: you are dying for the benefit of the greater society argument. At least not without a lot of free will built in. I think I read something about Stalin and Mao just a few pages ago on this thread...
Fortunately we've increased our ability to protect against fire-related loss. But yeah, cat-crackers are among the many industrial/insulating uses for asbestos that have been difficult to replicate with other materials. There's a reason a lot of the asbestos litigation hotspots are near chemical alley in TX/LA, and oil refineries and power plants, generally.

I did a survey one time for a client who purchased a building. The seller certified that there was no asbestos in the building, so my client agreed to the purchase and did not hire an expert to verify. That was dumb.

That turned into a pretty hefty lawsuit.

So is a turkey!

We work on a lot of schools and municipal buildings and run into that all the time when we do additions. Abatement is expensive.

To be fair to the zealots, we have probably all been near an asbestos-related product at some point--but the stuff is only dangerous if friable, and the amount of friable asbestos in the modern U.S. from asbestos-related products is pretty low.

Because I was involved with Boiler operations in maintenence 3 employees volunteered to take 3-4 day state licensed abatement courses. We had some old facilities with steam/heating pipes that were wrapped in it. We wore masks/plastic suit covers with elastic around the ankles/wrists and boot covers - duct taped and would wet down some pipes and union covers with a solution cut it out then use a fiberglass with platic covers  but only small jobs. Pipe junctions are necessary for every piping system since a pipe network cannot have a continuous lengths of pipe and it was all wrapped.Then a private contractor came in after and checked air quality for the all clear. I maybe did this 3-4 x the other guys liked the over time - on weekend and over nite.
 
When we took the state courses the instructor told us it was in most if not all of the brake pads on vehicles for years. If you were a kid/vendor on any downtown street corners selling newspapers,hotdogs or what ever it was wafting around all the stop and go intersections. Many of the old time mechanics I know still wrenching in their late'60s early '70s remember using air hoses blowing brakes all out.Use to be in old lathe plastered walls/ceilings and in mortar joints also. So it certainly wasn't uncommon.

The good news is that our bodies have a dose/response relationship to asbestos (like all other substances), and most of us will never develop asbestos-related disease from the relatively low doses we have been exposed to--even if we were around brake jobs, etc. But it still sucks for those poeple who do develop said diseases, particularly mesothelioma.