Smoke abatement

John Ranlett. The Smoke Abatement Exhibition of 1881. History Today. 31 (Nov. 1981) 10-13. 

Smoke abatement from the thermal reduction batch processor (TRBP) smoking rooms and the measurement and management of carbon monoxide and other products of incomplete combustion generated in these rooms. (These processes were not adequately addressed in the EDP.)... 

US Navy Smoke Abatement Additive Combustion Improver No 2 (Cl-2). COMNAVAIR-PACNOTE 470, NAVAIRPAC 742, Sec 1, P2... 

Contained a section on smoke abatement from which legislation to the present day has been based First smokeless zone and prior approval legislation Introduced smoke control areas, controlled chimney... 

As coal burning spread to Europe and North America with the industrial revolution of the nineteenth century, the scourge of urban air pollution spread with it. Smoke abatement was a staple topic of municipal reform movements in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and many American cities, especially Midwestern industrial centers where the problem was most severe, adopted control ordinances. But these early ordinances often lacked real teeth, with industrial interests in particular able to secure escape hatches.7... 

Smog would come to define the essence of Los Angeles, but the city was a latecomer to it. The word was coined in London at the end of the nineteenth century to describe the mixture of coal smoke and fog that had plagued that city for centuries. It first gained wide circulation in 1905 when Henry des Voeux, an officer of the Coal Smoke Abatement Society, began to use it at scientific meetings.2... 

The seriousness of the smoke problems in England (as well as on the continent) led to numerous efforts by local governments to control smoke, such as the 1853 Smoke Nuisance Abatement Act in London and the 1857 Smoke Abatement Act in Scotland, which both defined smoke from furnaces as a nuisance. In 1863, the British Parliament passed the Alkali Act, which set up an Inspectorate to control industrial emissions of hydrogen chloride. Its... 

Voeux, Harold (Henry) Antoine des (no birth/death data are available) French physician living in London, honourable treasurer of the Coal Smoke Abatement Society (formed in 1882) and later President of the National Smoke Abatement Society (Marsh 1947). 

Early days of pollution control aimed principally at smoke abatement, that is, particulate emission control. For installations using solid fuels, it was often necessary to change to more expensive gaseous or liquid fuels, which later were less expensive. As better designs evolved to reduce particulates, users benefited because more complete combustion was achieved. 

Uses Antiknock additive in unleaded gasoline smoke abatement additive in fuels for conventional reciprocating internal combustion engines and gas turbine engines... 

Abatement—The process of minimizing public health dangers and nuisances, usually supported by regulation or legislation, that is, noise abatement and smoke abatement. 

Especially bad fogs that killed hundreds occurred in London during the winter of 1873-1874, but there was no real outcry of complaint. Some very weak smoke abatement measures were introduced in the 1875 Public Health Act, but there were many loopholes, so the legislation did not fix the problem. For example, no controls were placed on domestic dwellings, and mining and smelting operations were exempted. Even then, the penalties for the remainder were only small fines. 

A further attempt at a smoke abatement law was abandoned because of the start of the First World War. Then in December 1922 there was further heavy fog, and the consequent deaths from bronchitis and public awareness led to the 1925 Smoke Abatement Act, but it was again a weak piece of legislation. No real improvements occurred. 

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