#hfc-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.

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.  

Excerpt from this story from InsideClimate News:

Atmospheric concentrations of a greenhouse gas nearly 13,000 times more potent than carbon dioxide rose faster than ever before over a three-year period starting in 2015, a new study has found. The findings suggest that China and India may not be living up to recent pledges to dramatically reduce emissions of the pollutant.

The gap between the two countries' voluntary pledges to reduce the greenhouse gas—known as HFC-23, a type of hydrofluorocarbon—and the estimates of actual emissions for the pollutant is the equivalent of approximately 103 million metric tons of carbon dioxide per year, or the annual greenhouse gas emissions of 22 million automobiles, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

HFC-23 is an unwanted byproduct resulting from the manufacturing of HCFC-22, a chemical used in refrigeration and air conditioning. HCFC-22 replaced chlorofluorocarbons, which were phased out beginning in the 1990s for their role in creating the so-called "ozone hole." Since the international ban began, under the Montreal Protocol, atmospheric ozone concentrations have increased, and is expected to lead to the full recovery of the ozone layer sometime in the middle of the century.

A 2016 addition to the Montreal Protocol, known as the Kigali Amendment, requires companies that manufacture HCFC-22 to destroy HFC-23 to prevent its release into the atmosphere. So far, the United States, China and India have not ratified the agreement. The Trump administration's failure to ratify the Kigali Amendment, despite strong support from U.S. industries, takes pressure off of other countries to do the same, Avipsa Mahapatra, the climate campaign lead for the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), a UK-based environmental organization, said.

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.

HFC-23. O misterioso aumento de um dos mais potentes responsáveis pelo efeito de estufa

Um dos mais potentes gases com efeito de estufa, o hidrofluorocarboneto 23 (HFC-23), está a aumentar a um ritmo elevado na atmosfera. A conclusão é de um grupo de cientistas da Universidade de Bristol, no Reino Unido, num estudo publicado esta terça-feira.

A concentração de HFC-23 na atmosfera está a crescer para níveis recorde apesar de as emissões globais terem sido alegadamente eliminadas…