Whatever happened acid rain?

Widdershins

Acid rain recently came up in something I was reading about an unrelated topic. I read about the grimy buildings of a Polish city being left grimy because it sort of protected them from erosion by acid rain. Maybe a Polish Boards user can confirm or dispute this?

Special Circumstances

jimgoose wrote: »

The third thing that happened was the Lambda sensor in all petrol cars. That got rid of an awful lot of NOx.

But nox is good now according to the Greens? Preferable to CO2 at least. Man, you'd swear they were making up as they go along, there doesn't seem to be any consistency or logic at work.

Patser

Dinny Byrne has Angina wrote: »

There was a junior certificate science textbook in circulation in the late 1990's which righteously announced that crude oil and gas would be exhausted by the 2020's-30's.

Factually speaking, they will never be exhausted. And although it will eventually become economically unviable to extract oil and gas, the 2030's prediction is a woefully premature miscalculation.

Sure when the Greens were in Govt only 6 years ago it was all about peak oil, how we'd passed a point were demand had outstripped supply of oil and that prices would spiral out of control....


Or just make fracking and extraction from tar sands financially viable leading to a current glut of oil that has seen prices crash until recent production cuts have created a balance.

JupiterKid

I remember the acid rain debate back in the 80s - it was a big environmental topic. One issue was the forests of Sweden and Finland being damaged by the coal pollution from the UK - all that sulphur crossing the North Sea.

But yeah. You don't hear of acid rain anymore. Another effect of acid rain was to eat away at limestone and marble buildings, particularly beautiful historic buildings like cathedrals.

I think the big switch from coal to natural gas for power generation, sulphur dioxide scrubbers in chimneys has partially resolved the acid rain problem.

After acid rain came the ozone layer and then climate change from greenhouse gasses. The nuclear debate was big back then too - remember Chernobyl? But it's funny how we've come full circle as there is a new wave of nuclear power station building.

Dinny Byrne has Angina

Samaris wrote: »

As for "factually speaking, oil and gas will never run out", I have no idea what planet you're living on. How do you think it's made? When a resource takes thousands of years to form and it is heavily used, y'know, maths.

Before you get so incensed, think of what I just said.

There will be many millions of barrels of oil left in the ground when it will have become economically unfeasible to extract it.

Oil will slowly disappear from usage as a major source of energy, but it will never run out. I actually spelled this out in my post, but you chose not to read that bit.

The Randy Riverbeast

gramar wrote: »

Would the ban on cfc's have had anything to do with the acid rain no longer being an issue?

Dont think so. The problem with CFCs was that they were bonding with either the spare O (may have been the O2) so the O2 and O1 weren't bonding together again to form O3 (ozone) which protects us from the sun's UV (I think) rays. Absorbing the radiation causes O3 to break into O2 and O.

Acid rain is caused by sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide. They did something with the water to make it acidic. Mostly from Coal and vehicles. Been awhile since I did chemistry.

December2012

wil wrote: »

maudgonner wrote: »

I'll see your Price, and raise you: The Thrills, Whatever Happened to Acid

Well if that's the way you're gonna play it.
Round ere we call it acieed.

Is that Littlefinger from Game of Thrones in DMob?

Ally Dick

Acid rain ? Sure it's always been acidic !!!