California bans chemicals used in frozen yogurt, Slurpee machines – By Paul Rogers (eastbaytimes.com) / March 23 2018
The California Air Resources Board on Friday banned a type of chemical used in industrial refrigeration equipment that also is a potent greenhouse gas.
The chemical class, a type of refrigerant known as hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs, is used in supermarket refrigerators, frozen yogurt dispensers, Slurpee machines, chilled vending machines and foams used in construction.
The chemicals have been found to trap heat in the atmosphere at a rate thousands of times the most common greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide. As part of California’s state law requiring a 40 percent reduction from 1990 levels of overall greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, state air officials have been working to reduce HFCs, along with the burning of fossil fuels and other causes of climate change.
In 2015, the Obama administration passed a federal rule phasing them out. But two companies that make the chemicals, Mexichem Fluor and Arkema, sued, arguing that the law used to regulate them was intended to phase out chemicals that deplete the ozone layer, not contribute to climate change.
In 2017, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia in a 2-1 decision blocked the federal rule.
But California air regulators essentially copied it at the state level. Alternative chemicals that don’t trap heat in the atmosphere are already being used by many manufacturers, state officials said.
“The board’s action today preserves the federal limits on the use of these powerful chemicals and refrigerants, and provides more certainty to industry,” said Mary Nichols, chairwoman of the air resources board. “We applaud the actions of many industries, which already have made significant investments in developing and using more climate-friendly alternatives.”
HFCs account for about 4 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions in California.
Similar chemicals made headlines 30 years ago when NASA images showed a growing hole in Earth’s ozone layer, which protects the planet and humans from most of the sun’s ultraviolet radiation. In 1987 President Reagan signed the Montreal Protocol, an international treaty to phase out such chemicals, including CFCs. HFCs were one of the alternatives.
