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Scientists Race To Find Who is Pumping a Dangerous Gas Into the Atmosphere (theoutline.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: When the research was published in Nature on May 16, it was like a bomb dropped. A greenhouse gas is billowing into the atmosphere from a source somewhere in East Asia that no one can identify at a rate scientists have never before seen, and it's ignited a scientific dash to get to the bottom of it. All countries are supposed to comply with the rules laid out in the 1987 Montreal Protocol, which banned the production of CFCs -- chlorofluorocarbons, which deplete the ozone layer and contribute to global warming -- with only temporary exception of a few economically developing countries. If everyone fulfills their end of the deal, the amount of CFCs in the atmosphere should gradually wane over the course of several decades. CFC levels plummeted through the 1990s, and then stagnated between 2002 and 2005. But in in 2014, mysterious toxic plumes of CFC-11 -- a type of CFC -- began to drift across the Pacific Ocean. Stephen Montzaka, a chemist who studies and monitors CFCs for The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA), was shocked.
Without a doubt. The only problem is how to pin it to them. The political will also isn't there to pin it to them - too much money changes hands in the West on the back of Chinese goods being traded and we've become far too dependent on the Chinese for trinkets and future ewaste.
some quick old style enrichment of uranium and the CFC is the tell? Should have studied more and not released the one product the world still looks into.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
I'm not saying it's aliens...But it's aliens! (The extra-terrestrial kind not the undocumented immigrant kind) They are terraforming the planet for their impending invasion.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
Wow, that narrows it down to only three billion people! Great detective work.
If we're going to get a handle on the environmentally destructive nature of capitalism then we're going to have to legislate that environmental capital be a real thing in all UN nations. That is that when you pollute the environment that you are held financially accountable for the costs required to remove it from the environment.
This tragedy of the commons has been going on far too long.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
TFS says "East Asia". India is not in East Asia by anybody's definition of that term.
On another note, wouldn't it be fun if this turned out to be Japan or North Korea?
Most normal production lines and random consumer products would have advanced after the 1980's.
Low cost, export approved. Keep CFC going just for domestic consumer use?
A domestic factory and imports would soon out pace 1970's CFC tech.
A production line that was perfected in 1970-80, needs lots of CFC and has never been replaced?
What advanced industry, consumer use could that be? That is not now low cost for consumers?
That opens up non consumer use. A secret that relates to a lot of CFC.
What old military design can release a lot of CFC and is worth the risk for a nation to try?
Someone is cooking and is in a rush for the result.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
You know when you "recycle" all those old fridges and freezers.
And it costs a bucket to throw them away.
And then a market starts up around a slightly cheaper way to do it.
And the company just takes your equipment, ships it abroad, to someone who just signs off that it's being disposed of properly (but who doesn't care because it's not his life he's hurting).
And then the abroad country, not having any care at all for such things as they get a nice backhander to bury a bit of rubbish, just throws it in landfill..
Yeah... there. That's where I'd start.
Like when you GPS-track waste electronics and find out it almost all ends up in landfill in India, China, etc. and isn't even processed at all.
You can't save much if UV burns the shit out of everything.
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
Nowhere does it state that CFC-11 is a greenhouse gas
They don't even need to, it should be common knowledge.
Ezekiel 23:20
Oh, he knows it, the anonymous coward is simply trolling. The fact that the greenhouse gas in question is CFC-11 is clear in the article linked, and it takes some very deliberate misreading to not see that it is in the summary.
CFC-11 is trichlorofluoromethane, for what it's worth. A better reference is here: https://www.nature.com/article...
Nowhere does it state that CFC-11 is a greenhouse gas
Because most people realize CFCs are a powerful greenhouse gas. Oh, and because you posted a Wiki link, here's one right back for you, and here's the important quote you should take from it:
the atmospheric impacts of CFCs are not limited to its role as an active ozone reducer. This anthropogenic compound is also a greenhouse gas, with a much higher potential to enhance the greenhouse effect than CO2.
Emphasis added. Don't blame your ignorance on others.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
I wouldn't bet on "most people" knowing that CFCs are also greenhouse gases. I consider myself pretty well-read, and that was news to me -- to me the issue with CFCs was always ozone.
But now I know. If I had been a journalist writing the piece, I would have clarified the issue.
I want to play Free Market with a drowning Libertarian.
South Asia.
See: https://www.express.co.uk/news... "SCIENTISTS have concluded a spike in banned chemicals which threatens to cause fresh damage to the ozone layer can be traced to badly recycled air conditioning units and fridges in China."
You are misinterpreting.
CFC-11 is a nearly 5000 times stronger Greenhouse gas than CO2, but it is only in very small amounts in the atmosphere.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
I consider myself pretty well-read
Did you read TFA?
If I had been a journalist writing the piece, I would have clarified the issue.
From TFA: "As greenhouse gases, CFCs are also thousands of times more potent than carbon dioxide"
How could it be more clear?
Any chance this could be natural? I'm pretty sure it isn't but just asking.
I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
Everybody wins by crushing thousands of tons of otherwise perfectly functional cars and appliances, got it. Does Everybody also work at your car dealership/appliance store? Putting R13A into a R-12 based system does not work.
That reminds me of when the Onion did a great article the Taco Bell morning after burrito, the Contraceptimelt.
https://www.theonion.com/taco-bell-launches-new-morning-after-burrito-1819564251
Which could just mean they had insufficient airflow or were low on refrigerant.
Bullshit.. For example, the LC50 for R134a is more than 500,000 parts per million while the LC50 for R12 is around 750,000 parts per million. In either case, that's a mighty big leak in an automobile to displace most of the air.
I did a little bit of reading on this subject just now. I found some studies that state there are natural sources of CFCs. Then I found another paper that says there are natural sources of CFC.s
From reading that paper I believe its safe to say there are natural sources of CFCs. But these sources are insignificant to really matter.
I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
Since the 1970s (yes, I'm showing my age), it's been relatively common knowledge that CFCs = ozone-depleting gases, and there have been published articles which seek to establish causal links to climate change as a secondary result of ozone depletion. So knowledge of CFCs as 'greenhouse gases' is not as common as knowledge of CFCs as 'ozone-depleting gases', but it's not as if it's completely out of the blue, either.
"Truth is what works" -- William James "It works!!" -- o-dark-AM comment
No, it's not natural. CFC-11 is fluorotrichloride, or CFCl3. C-Cl and C-F bonds are artificial- in nature you don't see them much. To form them you need to invest energy, because you're starting with ionic chlorides and fluorides, which are not terribly interested in forming covalent bonds with a non-metal like carbon. That's why these chemicals fall apart so easily when they reach the upper stratosphere. The fluorine doesn't stick around for long, but the chlorine with the unpaired electron attacks ozone and survives the encounter. A single chlorine radical will destroy billions of ozone molecules for the two years it spends in the air. It attacks its first ozone to form ordinary oxygen and chlorine monoxide, which still has an unpaired electron. The chlorine monoxide attacks a second ozone, yielding more oxygen and releasing the chlorine radical to kill again. Although the chlorine radical itself only lasts a few decades, its fluorotrichloromethane precursor hangs around for decades to replenish the supply.
The fact that the molecule has four of these weird bonds makes it really suspicious. Someone is definitely making this shit.
The article is poorly written. Yes CFCl3 is a potent greenhouse gas (and so is ozone actually), but the issue here is the ozone destruction, not the greenhouse effect. One shady factory in China manufacturing CFCs will warm the earth about as much as the factory next door legally manufacturing HFC. Sarin is a greenhouse gas too, but that's not what makes its release newsworthy.
I used to live in China and was in the data center cooling business. R12 is all over the place there in the HVAC industry. Officially, it's prohibited. Unofficially, you can buy it from any A/C dealer in just about any city. I've been gone for a few years, but when I was there, R12 air conditioners were still being made and installed new.
Any polyatomic gas is a greenhouse gas. If it's airborne and has three or more atoms, it qualifies.
Low energy infrared photons (like those emitted by a body at 300K) can cause bonds to bend side to side in a flapping motion.
Oxygen and nitrogen are diatomic molecules. They can stretch, but there's no way they can bend because there are only two atoms. So they're transparent to IR emitted from the ground and are not greenhouse gases. Molecules that can bend need three atoms or more, like carbon dioxide, which gets hit by an infrared photon and moves like a bird flapping its wings before reemitting it. H2O is also a greenhouse gas but its long term atmospheric concentration is stable over the long term and doesn't rise year over year. Methane is a potent gas because it's tetrahedral and its single bonds are easier to flex than e.g. the double bonds in CO2.
HFCs and CFCs also have tetrahedral shapes with single bonds, but they're more potent greenhouse gases than methane, because the fluorine and chlorine atoms distort the charge concentration and give the molecule a dipole moment that makes it better at scattering photons. They also provide it with more possible bending motions.
I'm not sure why this article is talking about illegal fluorotrichloromethane being a greenhouse gas. It's illegal because it destroys stratospheric ozone. Gram for gram, sarin is an extremely potent greenhouse gas, but that's not why it's illegal.
And yet it is the routine retrofit and replacement gas that is used constantly in exactly the applications you describe it as not being the replacement. Just because your duty suffers slightly doesn't make it a direct replacement.
The problem is that we're now legislating that 'need'.
Do you still wash your windows in benzine? Do you still use leaded paint and petrol? Do you still use large tubes of mercury to make tilt switches? You can thank legislation for your current life expectancy and the world you live in. Screw your shitty compressor and its duty cycle.
If any of my R-12 systems need recharging in the future I will be contacting India or China or flipping ISIS if that's what it takes.
On behalf of the world, fuck you you inconsiderate fuck.
I found studies answering my own questions. A simple google search would let you find the same things. Since I'm not proposing any thing outrageous, why do I need to do your research for you?
I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
But yet you think that lines on a map are important when you want to assign blame to people of the US? But not when the finger is pointed at the biggest polluter, China? So its only important when you can blame the U.S?
You see you are not looking to solve the problem? You are just looking for someone to blame. Since you can't blame the whole U.S. any more as the number one polluter, you pull out this per capta crap so you can continue to do so.
We get it, you hate the U.S. But here is something for you think about. There are 1.2 billion Chinese. While U.S. emissions have been on the decline for more than a decade. Yes, we used to be the first, now we are the second. What do you think will happen as those 1.2 billion Chinese want to start emitting like the average U.S. does?
We won't talk about India and Africa who are about to surpass the U.S. in emissions in probably the next decade. Will you shuffle the numbers around again so you can continue to blame the U.S?
An, no I don't hate China, India, or Africa. The point is silly people like you want to pass the blame but don't want to do anything about it. You have to recognize where all the true issues are to deal with it. Shuffling around numbers so you can still have your favorite boogy man doesn't solve squat.
Blaming individual people won't make the problem any better. We have to work with countries as a whole because that is the way our society is set up.
I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
The fact that the molecule has four of these weird bonds makes it really suspicious. Someone is definitely making this shit.
Well that blows. Thanks for bring me up to date.
I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
Why would I bother to do that? Tell you how smart I am. That accomplishes nothing. You have already formed your option of that, and anything I say will not change that.
You are mistaken about one thing. I did get the response I was looking for. I have drawn you out in to conversation. That is what I was trying to accomplish.
It wasn't your insults that attracted me to respond to you. I honestly could care less what people think about me personally. I've been on the internet way to long to be affected by peoples personal option. No, as I said, I remember some of your first posts. They where well thought out and very insightful. That earned you some of my respect. I guess I was mistaken about that.
But I would be interested in hearing more about this 'fame' you brought up. Some how that has escaped my notice.
I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
Boring!
Tell me more about this fame thing you brought up.
I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.