Discover Top Posts Tagged with #hydrofluorocarbon-23

Excerpt from this story from Inside Climate News:

A proposed rule by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency would require the chemical manufacturer Chemours to follow through on a recent voluntary commitment to eliminate emissions of a climate super-pollutant from its Louisville Works chemical plant.

The company pledged in March to eliminate 99 percent or more of its emissions of hydrofluorocarbon-23 (HFC-23), a greenhouse gas thousands of times more potent than carbon dioxide, from the plant by the end of 2022, after Inside Climate News inquired about emissions from the facility.

The proposed rule, released earlier this month, would require Chemours to eliminate 99.9 percent of its HFC-23 emissions by October 1, 2022, a deadline that could be extended for up to one year if the company can demonstrate that it needed more time to make the fix.

Chemours vented hundreds of tons of HFC-23 into the atmosphere from its Louisville plant, making it the largest emitter of the pollutant in the country, according to information the company submitted to the EPA for 2019, the most recent year for which data is available. HFC-23 is an unwanted byproduct that is produced in the manufacturing of hydrochlorofluorocarbon-22 (HCFC-22), a chemical ingredient in everything from Teflon to lubricants used on the International Space Station.

HFC-23 is not a local air pollutant, in that it doesn’t cause immediate health hazards or contribute to smog. From a climate perspective, however, the chemical is one of the most potent greenhouse gases warming the planet. HFC-23 is 12,400 times more potent than carbon dioxide, the primary driver of climate change. Emissions of HFC-23 from the plant are equal to the annual greenhouse gas emissions of 671,000 automobiles, more than all cars and light-duty trucks currently registered in Louisville.

#EPA #HFC-23 #hydrofluorocarbon-23

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.

#Louisville Kentucky #Chemours #hydrofluorocarbon-23 #HFC-23 #air pollution

Preliminary atmospheric monitoring data from a remote South Korean island off China’s east coast shows elevated concentrations of hydrofluor

Excerpt from this story from Inside Climate News:

Preliminary atmospheric monitoring data from a remote South Korean island off China’s east coast shows elevated concentrations of hydrofluorocarbon-23 (HFC-23), a greenhouse gas 14,700 times more potent than carbon dioxide on a pound-for-pound basis, according to the World Meteorological Association.

The gas concentrations remain elevated in air samples collected at the Gosan atmospheric monitoring station on South Korea’s Jeju Island in 2022 even after China, previously identified as the source of HFC-23 pollution detected at this site, was supposed to have ceased emitting it under an international agreement.

In June 2021, China ratified the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol, a binding international agreement that seeks to curb emissions of climate-warming HFCs, synthetic gases primarily used for air conditioning and refrigerating. The agreement entered into force in China on September 15, 2021, requiring the country to reduce HFC-23 emissions “to the extent practicable” by the end of 2021.

The primary source of HFC-23 emissions in China was as a byproduct in the manufacturing of HCFC-22, which is used to produce other fluorinated chemicals including polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE), or Teflon. More than half of all HCFC-22 has been produced in China since 2009, according to a United Nations Environment Programme report.

#hydrofluorocarbon-23 #HFC-23 #Montreal Protocol #Kigali Amendment #air conditioning #refrigerant #China