Power Stations and Air Pollution

Abstract

DURING the past two years, public attention in Great Britain has been focused on the question of air pollution due to the operation of super-power electric stations. In his recent presidential address to the Junior Institution of Engineers, Dr. S. L. Pearce, engineer-in-chief of the London Power Company, discusses this problem and others of great importance at the present time owing to the practice of concentrating more and more power in single generating stations. Efficient measures are available for preventing the pollution of the atmosphere by the smoke and ash from chimney-stacks when stoker-fired boilers are used, but when pulverised fuel is adopted the problem becomes more difficult, owing to the fineness of the dust content of the ash. The recent controversy about the new Battersea power station had reference to the much more difficult problem of arresting the possible damage to buildings and vegetation, and the alleged danger to life, due to the sulphur oxides contained in the products of combustion issuing from the chimneys.