Clean Air Technologies

Scrubbers
Toxic exhaust from power plants accounts for much of the nation's air pollution. Congress's 1990 Clean Air Act required that all electric generating plants in the U.S. reduce their emissions by 2010. In response, many plants have already added scrubbers to their chimneys. These industrial pollution control devices can remove toxic substances from exhaust streams, or neutralize them so that they are harmless or even recyclable. Ironically, the more robust the plume of smoke rising from a smokestack, the more likely it is "scrubbed" exhaust. So-called "wet" scrubbers can increase the proportion of water in waste gases, plumping up smoke plumes.