The Paradox of Smokeless Fuels: Gas, Coke and the Environment in Britain, 1813-1949
Author(s)
Thorsheim, Peter
Abstract
The contemporary world faces a toxic legacy: environmental contamination caused by past industrial activities. In Britain, a large proportion of the soil and groundwater pollution that occurred during the 19th and first half of the 20th centuries came from gasworks and coke plants. Paradoxically, many people long viewed them as the answer to the country’s pollution problems. Smoke-abatement activists and industry officials argued that gas and coke could be burned without producing the large quantities of particulates and volatile organic compounds that emanated from coal fires. Yet promoters of these “smokeless fuels” failed to recognize that they did not eliminate environmental problems but instead shifted them from sites of consumption to those of production.
