In 1952, postwar #London was a busy metropolis that relied heavily on coal for both electricity generation and residential heating. It had been an unusually cold Autumn, and Londoners had been burning more coal than normal to stay warm.
Because the better-quality “hard” coals, such as anthracite coal, were being exported, they were burning a low-grade sulphurous coal similar to lignite coal. The amount of sulphur dioxide in coal smoke rose as a result of this.
In the Greater London area, there were multiple coal-fired power stations that emitted 1,000 tonnes of smoke particles, 2,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide, 140 tonnes of hydrochloric acid, 14 tonnes of fluorine compounds, and 370 tonnes of sulphur dioxide every day.
