Acid Rain

Acid Rain Essay

By: Marshall Harrison

8B

Acid rain, it’s a problem that most people are probably unaware of but it is still a serious issue in some parts of the world.  This essay will be your complete guide to Acid Rain. We will go over every corner and aspect of acid rain so that you can be totally aware of this major issue at hand.

So let’s start off on the basics what is acid rain. Acid is basically any form of precipitation that has acid in it. Acid rain occurs when emissions of the compounds ammonium, nitrogen, carbon, and sulfur react with the water in the air thus making acid rain.  Acid rain is mainly a problem in the United States, Europe, and China. Although all of these places have problems with acid rain, the United States and Europe have passed several laws that have been decreasing the amount of acid rain in the last 30 or so years. The only problem though is China. As America and Europe’s acid rain percentages decrease, China’s is increasing and it is beginning to worry some scientists mainly because of all the effects it has on nature. Acid rain has a massive effect on nature. The rain can damage plants, aquatic animals, and infrastructure through the process of wet deposition. So far, you can see why people are concerned about acid rain. There are also some health concerns about acid rain.  The major health issue is inhaling the bad chemicals. Inhaling these chemicals can cause earlier than expected deaths for people with heart problems of breathing disorders like asthma.

Now we know so far that emissions of the  compounds of ammonium, nitrogen, carbon, and sulfur are to blame for acid rain and we also know the health problems that occur because of acid rain  but let’s look into what kinds of reactions are going on up in the clouds. Now I’m about to get very scientific on you because I will have the formula’s for what compounds are combining with the water to make the acid that causes acid rain. Sulphur dioxide and water form sulphurous acid (H₂SO₃) SO₂ (g) + H₂O (l) <--> H₂SO₃ (aq). In some cases sulphur dioxide (SO₂) oxidizes to sulphur trioxide (SO₃) 2SO₂ (g) + O₂ (g) -> 2SO₃ (g). The sulphur trioxide (SO₃) then combines with water making sulphuric acid (H₂SO₄) SO₃(g) + H₂O(l) -> H₂SO₄(aq).Some oxides of nitrogen like nitrogen dioxide (NO₂) react with water to form nitrous acid (HNO₂) and nitric acid (HNO₃) 2NO₂(g) + H₂O(l) -> HNO₂(aq) + HNO₃(aq). Now all of that was very complicated and you may have not understood it but this is basically a few examples of how you can incorporate chemistry into this major pollution problem we know to be acid rain.

Now that we know how acid rain is formed and how we can incorporate chemistry into this problem, we need to now know how to stop this from happening. The first and most obvious way of stopping this problem would be to reduce the amount of sulfur oxide and nitrogen oxide emissions. This is the main and pretty much only way of lowering the amounts of acid rain. But wait, there is more that we can do to stop acid rain. If in factories that create these emissions start burning low sulfur coal, it will reduce the amount of acid rain largely. Or if we begin using nuclear energy to provide power to all of society, then the amounts of acid rain reduce which is exactly what we all want right.

What is good to know about all of this acid business is that governments have been passing laws to try to help reduce this acid rain. In 1981, the U.S government passed a law that let a research company look into this problem over a ten year time period and give the government a full report. Then in 1991, after all the information had been handed over to the government, they began to pass a series of laws within the Clean Air Act to help reduce the amount of acid rain by the year 2010. So far, it appears to have been a success as the amount of acid rain a year has definitely gone down.

It’s about time that I let you know how I feel about the topic and what you guys can do to help stop acid rain for good.  Now I feel that the world has made great progress in reducing the amounts of acid rain. Think about it. If we hadn’t reduced the amount of acid rain falling a year, almost everyone you’d talk to would know about it but very few folks don’t know anything at all about acid rain.  Now that I have gotten my opinion out, I need to tell you what you can do to stop acid rain. First of all, electricity is what is causing all of this so if we use less of it, we can have less acid rain so whenever you leave a room, turn off the lights. Just small things like that can have a huge impact on the future. Also, what is causing these problems is fuel being burnt off in yours cars. What you can do is use your cars less or use fewer cars. Take public transportation or even carpool. It could have a major impact on your future.

So in conclusion, we have learned a lot today about acid rain. I hope that whoever is reading this learned a thing or two about acid rain.