Eli5: Where coal powerplant smoke goes to?

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Hi, around 20km away from where I live there is a coal powerplant. The “smoke” coming out of the chimney is dense and white, which suggests that it’s just steam, and for all I know steam doesn’t pollute. There is no darker smoke around the powerplant, it doesn’t even smell like it’s coal burning there. Where does all the smoke go?

In: Chemistry

3 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

They install “Scrubbers” in the smoke stacks. They the smoke out of the air, and capture it in what basically amounts to a massive filter. The chemical process used actually allows them to retrieve a recyclable form of gypsum from the filters, which gets turned into dry-wall for home building.

Basically go look at the air-intake filter for your house’s HVAC system. The filter is a scrubber, and the dust is “smoke”.

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