In general, new cost-justified structures that reflect the costs of providing energy should replace the promotional block type of rate structures now in use. With electricity, such a pricing system also needs to be geared to peak period use, as is now the case in France. Such a pricing system would eliminate or at least greatly modify the present rate system, which causes the poor to pay more per unit of energy than others. Such a reformed rate system would also slow the growth in residential consumption generally, thereby easing possible energy shortages and the air pollution created by the fuel additional electric generating plants would burn. By slowing the rate at which plant must be expanded, such a reformed rate system would give utilities opportunities to find ways of eliminating the pollutants given off into the air by their existing plants.