Alternative Fluorocarbons Environmental Acceptability Study
1938-92 (CFC-11); 1931-92 (CFC-12)
Worldwide production of the chlorofluorocarbons CFC-11 (CCl3F) and CFC-12 (CCl2F2) by companies participating in the Alternative Fluorocarbons Environmental Acceptability Study (AFEAS) is reported on an annual basis to Grant Thornton, an independent accounting firm. (AFEAS replaced the former Chemical Manufacturers Association Fluorocarbon Program Panel.) The data are essentially sales figures categorized to reflect end use: aerosols (propellants), hermetically sealed refrigeration, nonhermetically sealed refrigeration, closed-cell foams, open-cell foams, and all other uses. The figures provided by Grant Thornton are corrected for inventory changes but do not reflect losses ("fugitive emissions") during manufacturing and packing. AFEAS corrects the estimates for fugitive emissions and calculates release estimates of CFCs for each end-use category on the basis of the reported production figures and information about the pattern of release to the atmosphere. The release estimates are based solely on data for CFCs produced by companies participating in AFEAS. The estimates encompass most or all production in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, the European Economic Community (EEC), Japan, Mexico, South Africa, the United States, and Venezuela. Unreported production occurs in the republics of the former Soviet Union, the former Czechoslovakia, India, the Peoples Republic of China, Romania, South Korea, and Taiwan. The uncertainty in the overall estimate of CFC releases stems largely from the lack of data from these countries. Based upon informal estimates by AFEAS member companies, the unreported production of CFCs appears to have increased from ~12% of the worldwide total in 1982 to ~25% in 1992. An additional uncertainty for CFC-11 involves the estimate of release from closed-cell foams: the release rate depends on a number of highly variable factors, such as the lifetime of the products in which the foam is incorporated, the rate of breakdown of the foam cells, and the method of disposal. For CFC-12, additional uncertainty exists in the estimate of release from nonhermetically sealed refrigeration: the length of refrigerant charge life varies, particularly in industrial refrigerators.
CITE AS: Alternative Fluorocarbons Environmental Acceptability Study. 1994.
CFC-11 and CFC-12 release estimates from AFEAS. In Trends: A Compendium of Data on
Global Change. ORNL/CDIAC-65. Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center, Oak Ridge
National Laboratory, U.S. Department of Energy, Oak Ridge, Tenn., U.S.A.
Date created 12/06/96 (jaw)
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