Catching up to London in the 1930s...or was it 1950s?
Burning lots of coal in dated power stations next to a city is a bad idea for the residents health.
Burning lots of coal in dated power stations next to a city is a bad idea for the residents health.
Edit: I don't understand the downvotes; my point is that the last coal-fired powerstation in London was closed a lot more recently than people might think.
Not that it's even remotely comparable. DC's air quality in 2012 was still unimaginably better than Beijing's. (I say this having experienced both.) But still, these things can move slowly.
There was a quite large coal fired power station operating close to Edinburgh until very recently (2013):
Every time someone mentions wind turbines "spoiling the view", I show them a photo taken looking along Portobello beach. In the far distance a few white single-pixel turbines are visible. In the medium distance is Cockenzie, which is on the seaside and visible from miles around.
The deadly particles in London are now mostly invisible. If you live in London you'll die 20 years earlier. Great city, but I'm glad I'm not there any more. I used to hate having a nose full of black coming out of the northern line. London is rated as having the worst air pollution in Europe. They say about 50,000 people die per year in the UK because of bad air quality.
There's still some coal stations near cities in the UK though... even one near London. http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Existing_UK_coal-fired_...
20 years seems way too much, I doubt people in a clean country get to die e.g. in the their 90s on average, while Londoners perish in their 70s.
I saw an EU study a few months ago claiming the most polluted monitored place in the 28 EU states is the town of Pernik in Bulgaria and Sofia is the most polluted capital ( it's in Bulgaria as well).