LOUISVILLE, Kentucky—A chemical plant here that makes a raw material for everything from Teflon to lubricants used on the International Space Station also appears to do more damage to the climate than all of this city’s passenger vehicles. The Chemours Louisville Works along the banks of the Ohio river is the nation’s largest emitter of […]
Excerpt from this story from Inside Climate News:
A chemical plant here that makes a raw material for everything from Teflon to lubricants used on the International Space Station also appears to do more damage to the climate than all of this city’s passenger vehicles.
The Chemours Louisville Works along the banks of the Ohio river is the nation’s largest emitter of a climate super-pollutant known as hydrofluorocarbon-23 (HFC-23). As a greenhouse gas, the chemical is 12,400 times more potent than carbon dioxide, the primary chemical compound responsible for warming the planet, and could be eliminated with low cost, existing technology.
Following inquiries about emissions from the plant by Inside Climate News, Chemours announced a plan Monday to curb those emissions by the end of 2022. However, the company hasn’t met its own commitment to install pollution controls since company officials pledged at a White House gathering in 2015 “to control and, to the extent feasible, eliminate by-product emissions of HFC-23 at all its fluorochemical production facilities worldwide.”
HFC-23 is an unwanted byproduct resulting from the production of hydrochlorofluorocarbon-22, (HCFC-22) a chemical that, until recently, was widely used as a refrigerant in air conditioners. HCFC-22 also destroys atmospheric ozone which helps protect the earth from harmful ultraviolet rays. The production and use of the chemical was banned in the United States and other developed countries on January 1, 2020 under an international agreement known as the Montreal Protocol.
However, Chemours is exempt from the ban because the HCFC-22 produced in Louisville is used as a feedstock to manufacture Teflon and other fluoropolymers that do not damage the earth’s protective ozone layer. While these end products don’t damage atmospheric ozone, the HFC-23 produced as a byproduct at the plant has a tremendous climate impact.
