17 replies to this topic

[lourdes]

Fossil Fuels are said to be a cause of acid rain from the emissions they produce, which contains sulphur dioxide. Is this true?

[Lucy]

I think that is what we were taught growing up in school as well. But yeah, does this hold true anymore, I would love to know too. I hope someone can answer it.

[lorindaleigh]

From what I have read there are many causes of acid rain. Fossil fuels are one major cause.

[neodoxa]

lourdes, on 01 December 2010 - 04:49 AM, said:

Fossil Fuels are said to be a cause of acid rain from the emissions they produce, which contains sulphur dioxide. Is this true?

You hit the nail on the head.

Burning fossil fuels is the biggest contributor to acid rain.  When coal burns it releases heavy amounts of sulfur dioxide into the air.  This sulfur dioxide gets re-oxidized once in the atmosphere, yielding sulfur trioxide.  Sulfur trioxide then mixes with the water in the air to form diluted concentrations of sulfuric acid (making acid rain).

Here is a diagram showing the basic formation of acid rain:



There are other factors that influence acid rain formation, but coal is definitely one of the biggest.

I hope I answered your question!

Neodoxa

[Bababooey]

I can't believe we're still burning coal for power. That was fine for a 19th century locomotive, but in this day and age it seems archaic. Coal mining is also one of the nastiest, most dangerous jobs in the world. Why can't we take the resources devoted to coal mining and put them into making solar power a viable energy source? Is that naive?

[neodoxa]

My father is a coal miner, and yes... It's a dirty and very hard job to do.   It's not archaic... Burning carbon is practical and available to the masses.
Power from coal is also cheaper to produce than nuclear power.  For the time being, coal isn't going anywhere and will continue to be a main source of power for humanity.  
Yeah, it's fun to dream about solar power someday powering your A/C, computers, and light bulbs...  but it's just not there yet... Coal can do it.  Now.  And as we all know... NOW is what matters to society.

Neodoxa

[kat74]

Acid rain will become a menace with the high rate of pollution happening daily. Unless we start thing of ways to minimize these emissions from our machines, there will be no future for our future generation.

[marale60]

If you have ever toured Europe, particularly old cathedrals from hundreds of years ago, you can quite easily see what acid rain does to structures and stonework. It is very sad indeed to see a "melted saint" statue at a cathedral entrance. Acid rain is an insidious destroyer of things....it slowly eats away and never stops. It won't until we end our addiction to fossil fuels and even then it will take years for the air to purify itself.

[Amethyst45]

lourdes, on 01 December 2010 - 04:49 AM, said:

Fossil Fuels are said to be a cause of acid rain from the emissions they produce, which contains sulphur dioxide. Is this true?

kat74, on 09 October 2011 - 03:46 AM, said:

Acid rain will become a menace with the high rate of pollution happening daily. Unless we start thing of ways to minimize these emissions from our machines, there will be no future for our future generation.

Citation?

[Shortpoet-GTD]

That member no longer posts, so here is some info on acid rain.

http://www.epa.gov/acidrain/

http://environment.n...rain-overview/#

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acid_rain

[still learning]

Amethyst45, on 07 February 2013 - 03:51 PM, said:

Citation?

Ditto what Shortpoet wrote.

While I'm not sure what kat74 meant, yes, sulfur dioxide from fossil fuel burning is a major cause of acid rain and is a major smog component.  Neodoxa's first post in this thread is pretty good, in my opinion.

Not all fossil fuels are equal though.
The source material that geologic processes changed into fossil fuels came from the biomass of formerly living organisms and all living things necessarily contain at least a little of the element sulfur incorporated into a variety of different molecules.  That sulfur tends to get incorporated into the fossil fuel, as can sulfur from anaerobic sulfate reduction as part of ordinary bacterially mediated decomposition of dead organisms.  
While the amount of sulfur incorporated into natural gas and petroleum and coal can all vary widely as it comes from the ground, it is practical to desulfurize natural gas and petroleum products before they're burned, but not coal.
Natural gas is desulfurized in the US, by law, I think.  Gasoline has always been low-sulfur in the US.   Diesel for road use in the US is now all low-sulfur, and off road use (rail, agriculture, construction) is going that way http://epa.gov/otaq/...fuels/index.htm
I gather that it's relatively easy for the natural gas folks to remove sulfur (in the form of hydrogen sulfide) at the same time as they do other processing and that oil refiners can get the sulfur out of petroleum with some difficulty, it's not practical to separate out the sulfur from unburned coal.  Can separate out sulfur from the exhaust gasses from coal combustion, but at added expense.

[Shortpoet-GTD]

Amethyst45, on 13 February 2013 - 04:01 PM, said:

How much acid rain is produced by lightning?

You're kidding right?

[still learning]

Shortpoet-GTD, on 13 February 2013 - 05:32 PM, said:

You're kidding right?

I was finally going to reply to Amythyst45's question: "How much acid rain is produced by lightning?" but that post seems to have disappeared.

My first uninformed guess was "not much," and after a fair amount of googling around, my now more informed guess is still "not much."

While most acid rain is due to sulfur dioxide emissions, nitrogen oxides contribute too, about 25%.  http://www.rps.psu.e...hoice/rain.html

Nitrogen oxides mainly are a minority product of combustion, but some does get produced by lightning.  How much?  I found a wide range of estmates.  Perhaps 30% of that 25%.  Perhaps 10% of that 25%.  
http://www.nap.edu/o..._id=898&page=74
http://archive.bio.e...es/nitrogen.htm

However much lightning does contribute to acid rain, it's always been going on, not caused by people.

[Tim the plumber]

kat74, on 09 October 2011 - 03:46 AM, said:

Acid rain will become a menace with the high rate of pollution happening daily. Unless we start thing of ways to minimize these emissions from our machines, there will be no future for our future generation.

The effects of acid rain are the killing of trees in particularly vunerable spots.

The cause is either volcanic emmissions or industrial burning of sulfur rich coal.

We can (and do) often use scrubbers to remove the sulfur from the exhaust of power stations or what ever.

It's never going to destroy the wrold though.

[Shortpoet-GTD]

Tim the plumber, on 03 March 2013 - 08:26 AM, said:

We can (and do) often use scrubbers to remove the sulfur from the exhaust of power stations or what ever.

Source for that statement? Or link?

[still learning]

Shortpoet-GTD, on 03 March 2013 - 02:16 PM, said:

Source for that statement? Or link?

If it matters, for powerplant SO2 scrubbers in the US, check out  http://www.sourcewat....S._Coal_Plants
SO2 stuff is about 2/3 of the way down..

[Shortpoet-GTD]

still learning, on 03 March 2013 - 03:58 PM, said:

If it matters, for powerplant SO2 scrubbers in the US, check out  http://www.sourcewat....S._Coal_Plants
SO2 stuff is about 2/3 of the way down..

Thanks for that link. This note is of concern though.

"It remains unclear how the proposed Waxman-Markey Climate Bill, which passed the U.S. House of Representatives in June 2009
and heads to discussion by the Senate in the Fall, will impact existing coal plants.
Although the version of the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES) that passed the House requires a 50 percent reduction
in carbon emissions from new coal plants by 2025,
it mandates no specific reduction requirements for existing plants.
Environmental groups and public health advocates are concerned that, by driving up the cost of new plants and offering free emissions allowances or carbon offsets for older facilities, the bill may result in even heavier reliance on an aging fleet of coal plants.
Some groups have expressed concern that the climate change legislation may end up having similar issues to the 1977 Clean Air Act, which grandfathered in older plants and
largely exempted them from requirements
that facilities use the best available pollution-control technologies.
Environmental advocates hope that the Senate will add regulations to ACES that will lead to the closure of older, highly polluting plants."

How could they have made it better?

[still learning]

Shortpoet-GTD, on 04 March 2013 - 04:35 AM, said:

Thanks for that link. This note is of concern though.

"It remains unclear how the proposed Waxman-Markey Climate Bill, ........
How could they have made it better?

Might have noted that the Waxman-Markey bill didn't pass.  No Federal CO2 restrictions.  No grandfathering issue for CO2.  Not yet.  The Clean Air Act grandfathering of exemptions for old plants is an issue with SO2, sure enough.