Word: cfcs
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When they were first synthesized in the late 1920s, chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs % for short) seemed too good to be true. These remarkable chemicals, consisting of chlorine, fluorine and carbon atoms, are nontoxic and inert, meaning they do not combine easily with other substances. Because they vaporize at low temperatures, CFCs are perfect as coolants in refrigerators and propellant gases for spray cans. Since CFCs are good insulators, they are standard ingredients in plastic-foam materials like Styrofoam. Best of all, the most commonly used CFCs are simple, and therefore cheap, to manufacture...
...ozone in the upper atmosphere. Decreased levels of ozone, scientists have warned, would allow more ultraviolet radiation to reach the earth's surface and increase the incidence of skin cancer and other diseases. Under the new ruling, U.S. producers of halon, an ingredient in fire-extinguishing foam, and chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), which are widely used as coolants in refrigerators and air-conditioners, must halve their output within ten years. Nearly a dozen other countries, including Canada and Norway, have adopted similar measures...
While the regulation will be a blow to the users of halon and CFCs, it could, ironically, produce a windfall for producers. Until substitutes that do not harm the ozone become available, the prices of the chemicals may surge because of limited supplies. Recognizing that possibility, the EPA has asked for public comment on two ways of preventing producers from making excessive profits. One proposal calls for a special tax on earnings from CFC and halon sales, the other for the Government to auction off manufacturing rights, making a company pay for the privilege of producing the chemicals...
Several promising replacements are already being tested. One group, called HCFCs, or CFCs with an extra hydrogen atom, is already used in some home air- conditioners...
...slow either the greenhouse effect or the depletion of the world's ozone? The Montreal accord, agreed to last month after nearly five years of on-and-off negotiations, is a good start on ozone. It calls on most signatory countries to reduce production and consumption of CFCs by 50% by 1999. Developing nations, however, will be allowed to increase their use of the chemicals for a decade so they can catch up in basic technologies like refrigeration. The net effect, insist the treaty's advocates, will be a 35% reduction in total CFCs by the turn of the century...