|
Refrigeration gases in India and China reheat ozone issue |
|
|
|
|
Wednesday, 07 March 2007 |
 Thanks in part to an explosion of demand for air conditioners in hot places like India and southern China – mostly relying on refrigerants already banned in Europe and in the process of being phased out in North America – the ozone layer is proving very hard to repair, reports "Toronto Star".
Four months ago, scientists discovered that the "hole" created by the world's use of ozone-depleting gases – in aerosol spray cans, aging refrigerators and old air conditioners – had expanded again, stretching once more to the record size of 2001.
An unusually cold Antarctic winter, rather than the rise in the use of refrigerants, may have caused the sudden expansion, which covered an area larger than North America. But it has refocused attention on the ozone layer, which protects people and other animals as well as vegetation from the sun's harmful ultraviolet rays.
Now, the world's atmospheric scientists are concerned that the air conditioning boom sweeping across Asia could lead to more serious problems in the future.
As it turns out, the fastest-growing threat to the ozone layer can be traced to people like Geeta Vittal, a resident of this hot, thriving metropolis of 18 million, who simply wants to be cooler and can now afford to make that dream a reality.
When her husband first proposed buying an air conditioner eight years ago, Vittal opposed it as a wasteful luxury. But he bought it anyway, and she liked it so much that when the Vittals moved last year to a new apartment, Vittal insisted that five air conditioners be installed before they moved in. All my friends have air conditioners now," she said. "Ten years ago, no one did."
Rising living standards throughout India and China, the world's two most populous countries and the fastest-growing major economies, have given a lot more people the wherewithal to make their homes more comfortable.
The problem is that Vittal's air conditioners – along with most window units currently sold in the United States – use a refrigerant called HCFC-22, which damages the ozone.
"The emissions of things like HCFC-22 – we had thought they were sufficiently in control, that we didn't have to worry about them," said Joe Farman, the British geophysicist who discovered the ozone hole.
A recent technical study by the World Meteorological Organization and the UN Environment Program found that the so-called ozone "hole" over Antarctica – actually an area of unusually low ozone concentrations – was mending more slowly than expected.
Scientists mostly blame chlorofluorocarbons, a chemical used in an early form of refrigerant that they now realize was released into the atmosphere in larger quantities than forecast. As a result, the international agencies now say that injury to the Earth's ozone layer could take a quarter of a century longer to heal than predicted. |
Archive Industry News 
English RSS
