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Scientists Baffled By Unknown Source of Ozone-Depleting Chemical
schwit1 writes: Scientists have found that, despite a complete ban since 2007, ozone-depleting chemicals are still being pumped into the atmosphere from some unknown source. "Carbon tetrachloride (CCl4), which was once used in applications such as dry cleaning and as a fire-extinguishing agent, was regulated in 1987 under the Montreal Protocol along with other chlorofluorocarbons that destroy ozone and contribute to the ozone hole over Antarctica. Parties to the Montreal Protocol reported zero new CCl4 emissions between 2007-2012. However, the new research shows worldwide emissions of CCl4 average 39 kilotons (about 43,000 U.S. tons) per year, approximately 30 percent of peak emissions prior to the international treaty going into effect. "We are not supposed to be seeing this at all," said Qing Liang, an atmospheric scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and lead author of the study published online in the Aug. 18 issue of Geophysical Research Letters, a journal of the American Geophysical Union. "It is now apparent there are either unidentified industrial leakages, large emissions from contaminated sites, or unknown CCl4 sources."
Who else would, unapologetically, give the middle finger to the environment?
Cuz ozone ronery.
and there are a lot of old drums of this stuff sitting around old industrial buildings because it costs money to have it disposed of safely. There's probably a degree of it being released by the new generation of workers who have no idea what's in those old rusty drums, and the older workers have plain forgotten, and are just dumping it into drains to get rid of it and make space in the chemical storage room.
I know because it's happening all over the Coachella Valley. I have seen cut rate guys NOT reclaiming or pumping down coils - jettisoning 10+ pounds each time. This occurs at least 50 times a day here in the desert that I know of. Even top paid contractors like callthegeneral.com just don't care because their commission is based on number of visits per day, and it takes an extra 15-25 minutes to pump a system down before removal. The wholesale houses even pay a couple $$$ per pound of the reclaimed stuff, but commission rates ensure blowing off straight to atmosphere every time.
a more reasonable assumption would be use in parts of the world that don't know all of a chemical's properties. You would not be able to produce a list of ozone harmful chemicals from memory either
Since the source is completely unclear, most posters will blindly assume it is the fault of whichever group is their bête noire. Some favorites will likely be China, North Korea and Russia, but use your imagination folks. There is just as much evidence that it is caused by evil bankers, genetically modified foods, pedophiles or US militarism.
Not sure how accurate this is, since it's from wikipedia, but the reference seems legit.
In 2008, a study of common cleaning products found the presence of carbon tetrachloride in "very high concentrations" (up to 101 mg/m3) as a result of manufacturers' mixing of surfactants or soap with sodium hypochlorite (bleach).[18]
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10...
FTA:
"By mixing surfactants or soap with NaOCl, it was shown that the formation of carbon tetrachloride and several other halogenated VOCs is possible"
Actually it turned out to be koala flatulence.
Turns out digesting eucalyptus releases that type of gas.
Can't we just do what we usually do? Kill them all and call the ones that don't deserve it "unfortunately unavoidable collateral damage"?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
"The west" started Chinese air pollution? So the smog around Chinese cities is our fault? They must be really desperate for excuses...
Ezekiel 23:20
I would not be surprised at all if it is a component used in the fracking fluids associated with the process.
That is extremely unlikely. In addition to being illegal, it would also not be effective. CCl4 is not soluble is water, and would not make hydrocarbons more mobile or more soluble. It would however, readily dissolve in hydrocarbon fluids, where it would be difficult and expensive to separate.
Its called "setting a bad example." This got my little sister out of trouble almost every single time.
All the ozone from the exhaust of cars is the culprit. We just can't make enough ozone. Time to rev the engines.
And lack of constipation causes global warming. We're screwed either way, it seems.
Ezekiel 23:20
Well Corporate Americas is definitely at fault. They move the manufacturing to countries that have No EPA, No Unions, No OSHA. No labor laws.
Jack of all trades,master of none
It's obvious where it's coming from... China and all those other "cheap labor" part of the world who don't give a damn about the environment.
You know the world has changed when the USA gets listed under "all those other 'cheap labor' parts of the world" and China gets top billing....
Why would they bother to support a UN treaty? They're like the biggest rogue state on the planet.
Partly a few rogue countries, but it's more likely high level photochemical reactions above high pollution zones over China where the level of pollution has gone way beyond safe levels. Throw some electrochemical processes and a highly unregulated "military" sector of Chinese companies and you've got a ready source.
Lightning cares nought for your political boundaries. Neither does pollution.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Some fault probably belongs to the countries that don't have those regulations.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Have gnu, will travel.
Well, California is pretty hot this year and they're just itching for someone to blame.
Supporter of the +1 Over Dramatic mod option. In memory of apk.
http://irwinallentvseries.wiki... ..." :-)
"Don and John come out of the ship asking about carbon tetrachloride. Smith says he uses it to remove stains--he's used it and left the top off. John asks him if he has any thoughts besides his immediate needs---without the carbon tetrachloride they will lose their food supply. They use it as food preservation (NOTE: how is a mystery---it is highly toxic). They will have to eat only non-perishable items and now face a food shortage (what about the hydroponic garden?).
Will Robinson saved the day on that episode, but he had to come all the way to Earth via an alien matter transporter to do it.
Kidding aside, you make a great point!
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
Well, of course it came from humans. There is no natural source of CFCs on earth. They aren't a naturally occurring substance.
Could it be accumulating in garbage dumps, and getting released when the surface ground is disturbed... perhaps when they pave over it and turn it into a city?
Buck Feta. You know what to do.
Australians suffer the highest rates of skin cancer in the world. Being located close to the ozone hole over the Antarctic means they are exposed to higher levels of UV radiation.
carbon tet and other degreasers used to just seep into the soil in "cleaning pits", I know buildings where that went on for half the 20th century.
Couldn't the CCl4 be resulting from radical chlorination in the upper atmosphere? There is certainly enough UV light available.
This is a very well known problem: most organic compounds, wherever they're found and whatever they may be, are easily halogenated (or less often substituted with other things, usually with bacterial help). Chlorine is by far the most common halogen and the most reactive electro-negative element outside of oxygen(#2) and fluorine(#1--fun stuff, watch the videos). I was going to waste bandwidth here, but here's a couple of Wikipedia links that explain things way better:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D...
Bleach/Chlorine + any organic material equals
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H...
which are Ozone-Depleting Chemicals, talked about here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O...
I remember a day when every geek/nerd knew what trichloroethane was as it made the best tape head cleaner, but times change...
Nutrient pollution causes dead zones.
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
I mean, it's got to be the military. They can still burn radioactive PCB contaminated mattresses in open trenches out in the desert and call them "destroyed".
CCl4 is not soluble is water, and would not make hydrocarbons more mobile or more soluble. It would however, readily dissolve in hydrocarbon fluids
You mean like diesel fuel?
where it would be difficult and expensive to separate.
The petroleum is going into a fractional distillation column. Its whole purpose is to perform this kind of separation. While the process might be difficult and expensive, it is a process which the petroleum will undergo anyway.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Some will blame humans.
Some will blame an unknown natural phenomenon.
Bottom line?
THEY DON'T KNOW.
And yet, despite yet another glaring example of the tenousness of our grasp of natural and human processes, people continue to think that the planet can be engineered to 'solve' climate change, etc.
Maybe the climate is changing, maybe it's not. Maybe it's human caused, maybe it's not. We just don't know. And maybe the wise person will hold off on acting in ignorance so they don't make things worse. The only reason not to wait is to profit from the fear mongering. And that's just wrong.
"Consensus" in science is _always_ a political construct.
The history of China is that their government tends view their citizens as cheap expendable assets. If pollution related illnesses don’t kill them in inconvenient numbers they are willing to accept the impacts of the pollution. At least as long as those impacts fall on the general population and not the elites. I suspect you’ll find the elites have taken steps to protect themselves. Things like filtered water and air in their residences and offices etc. As far as the general public goes their real concern is that they are kept placid so what they are looking for is a scape goat to focus public anger on. So when people complain about pollution they trot out “evil people in the west did it”. Since they control the media and it is a police state ridiculous statements like that can pretty much stand mostly unchallenged.
Why don't we capture this supposed ozone-depleting chemical and spray it all over urban centers that are now showing rising levels of ozone?
Here's a link to the EPA Superfund site search for 'tetrachloride'. There are 215 results, some of which (chosen at random) seem to have a pretty nasty mix of contaminants of concern.
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
Call the feds @ the EPA. I don't see anything in Paulding County in GA listed on their superfund search site.
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
Something in the currently melting polar ice caps, perhaps. If it (or a chemical that breaks down into it) are in there in some form, they could be getting released as the ice melts.
Different chemical. Same treaty lophole.
Have gnu, will travel.
I grew up drinking the stuff. Living in the Ohio River / West Virginia area, we would get these warnings that local chemical industries had accidentally spilled carbon tet into the Ohio River. We were told to boil the water. I was suspicious, I thought, either boiling doesn't separate the carbon tet, or it does, and we are all standing in our kitchens breathing it.
The town I grew up in had to dig up 18 inches of dirt, process the dirt, and put it back. I think it was paid for by Superfund.
...it's not anything man made. May be it's just a natural, environmental condition that no matter what we do will never really go away.
Seriously, who says that someone has to be behind it? A scientist? They've been trying that meme for years; and probably will continue that meme for years to come. It may just be that it's not human related in any manner.
But then, OMG, humans may not be at fault for AGW or Ozone Depletion...environmentalists can't have that.
Now, I'm not saying that we should not be good stewards and clean up after ourselves; make sure that industry waste is not properly disposed of, etc. We should. We should do our best to (as the Boy Scouts say) leave the area at least as clean as we found it.
Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't goin' away. - Elvis Presley (source: imdb.com)
So, the main use of carbon tet was manufacturing the CFC's. this is replacing a chlorine with a fluorine. Done in a manufacturing facility. So, if this is due to it still being used for that purpose, you'd be able to look at the presence of the products. If plants have leaky manufacturing processes, you should see the carbon tet as well as the CFC's.
If I were to guess, it's degassing from old landfills.
NZ is right behind Australia for number of cancer cases. I tried to find stats for skin cancer only but was unable. A nation of heavy smokers would skew the results if looking at all cancers. Are Australians and New Zealanders heavy smokers?
I would *think* those fertilizers would help botanical sea-life
Yes - it can cause an Algal Bloom. Blocking the sun and generally detrimental to all other sea life. Think of it like a HOSTS file for the ocean.
The vast majority of smart people who intensively study such things say that the climate is changing, the planet is warming up, and it's mostly due to burning fossil fuels. You're at liberty to study what you like to confirm this.
I'd call any process that raised CO2 from 280ppm to 400ppm climate engineering. Why is any other form objectionable?
Not to mention that "not acting" and continuing to raise atmospheric CO2 is actually acting, and problems are usually easier to solve before they get really bad.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
These are valid general objections. I'll add a genuine question from someone with 30 years experience in drilling oil wells - what the fuck would you expect it to do?
The only time I've seen carbon tetrachloride used on an oil rig (with the possible exception of in HVAC systems, which I just use but don't have to maintain or care about their details, and which might contain CCL4) is as a laboratory reagent for separating different densities of liquid hydrocarbons. Which is something you don't really need to do at the rig site (why would you want 10 different tankers or pipelines when you can just run one to the storage farm and on to the refinery after blending). Separating gaseous and liquid hydrocarbons is routinely done (strangely, in the so-called "separator" ; doh!), but just using simple physical properties ; separating out solids ("waxes") is also needed in some low-temperature fields to prevent "waxes" accumulating in pipes, tanks, etc. But again, you don't need CCl4 for that either.
I can't think of a reason to use anything more than traces of CCl4 on a drilling rig. Even for the lab uses we've replaced it with propan-2-ol or acetone.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"