Excerpt: SFC × GC: A NaNoRebel Thesis.

Electricity and gas lead to cleaner air in cities, but without any reduction in the use of coal. The air in the cities was cleared by moving the source of pollution out of the cities, and into the countryside. This had the benefit of reducing cost to the energy supplier, as the power station was now most likely situated closer to the mine. This lead to the modern practice of considering the power station and its coal mines as a single system. Enlarging the scale of the combustion had the addional cleaning effect in that it promoted better combustion. For a power or a gas generator it pays to be efficient as possible, and wringing the last joule of energy from a given mass of coal promotes clean combustion. Legislation also forced power and gas producers to build very tall smokestacks. This lets the flue gases escape into the higher-speed wind at altitude, allowing rapid mixing with the atmosphere and dilution of pollutants. The introduction of electrostatic precipitators and filter technologies allows most solids in the flue gases to be captured, leading to an almost purely gaseous effluent. This kind of technology for domestic use simply does not exist.