Heat on CFCs; Manufacturers Press the Hunt for Substitutes : Environment: Chemicals are destroying the Earth’s ozone layer. Government and industry face a challenge in finding workable replacements.

WASHINGTON —  General Motors is trying to stuff a bigger air conditioner into its cars, while American Telephone & Telegraph is revising decades-old assembly line practices.

The changes come as industry, under pressure from government and environmentalists, seeks to eliminate the use of chlorofluorocarbons, the one-time wonder chemicals that have been destroying the Earth’s ozone layer.

But the task is more complicated than simply replacing an old chemical with a new one, government and industry experts say.

“The transition is going to take time. . . . We’re talking about retrofitting not one industry, but several industries,” says F. A. (Tony) Vogelsberg, environmental manager for the Freon division at Du Pont, a major producer of CFCs.

CFCs, discovered in 1928, help cool houses in summer and keep them warm in winter. They are used to make the foam cushions on couches, in pillows--even in stuffed toys.

Without them, refrigerators would not cool; radios, televisions, stereos and home computers might not work as well, and items from coaxial cables to mailed Christmas gifts might not have as much packaging protection.

But CFCs also have a dark side. When they float 10 to 30 miles above the Earth to the stratosphere, their chlorine component eats away at the ozone shield that protects the planet against the sun’s cancer-causing ultraviolet rays.

Industrial nations want to ban all CFCs production within the next decade. But although half a dozen or more replacements are under study, they all have some drawbacks and no single substitute is expected to be found.

“I don’t think there’s going to be a substitute that is going to be given an A-plus on all (areas of concern),” said Eileen Claussen, director of atmospheric and indoor air programs at the Environmental Protection Agency. “We’re going to have to make some trade-offs.”

The EPA is examining the array of substitutes, mainly a family of chemicals called HCFCs, to determine whether they are toxic or pose other health concerns and how significantly they harm the environment. The HCFCs also deplete ozone but much less severely.

“We clearly do not want to blunder along and create a new health or environmental problem while solving the ones that we targeted,” said Charles Elkins, whose EPA office is reviewing the potential toxicity of some CFCs substitutes.

Every year more than 2 billion pounds of CFCs are produced worldwide, a third of them in the United States.

The United States banned used of the chemical in aerosol cans in 1978, four years after the first concerns about the ozone layer were raised. Still, the operation of more than $135 billion worth of equipment nationwide is dependant on CFCs.

Industry turned to CFCs because they do not burn or corrode metal, pose no direct health hazards to workers and hold heat and cold, making them ideal insulators.

That was before their threat to the ozone layer was understood.

Half of the ozone over Antarctica was destroyed during September and October, 1987, causing a hole in the Earth’s protective shield that closes and reappears with the seasons. Severe destruction of the ozone layer is believed to be occurring over the South Pole again this year, according to scientists. They say the conditions for ozone destruction are present over the Arctic, although no massive loss of ozone has been observed there.

Several large corporations have announced plans to end their reliance on CFCs, some by the early 1990s. These include such giants at AT&T;, IBM, Boeing and General Electric.

“We have used CFC solvents and cleaners for so long they’re almost ingrained in the manufacturing process,” says David Chittick, vice president for environment and safety at AT&T.; Nevertheless, AT&T; hopes to end all use of CFCs by 1994.

The major auto makers are developing substitutes and are designing new air-conditioning units to accommodate the changeover, probably in the mid-1990s.

Impact on Industry

But the new air conditioners will be less energy-efficient and require larger compressors, experts say. “We feel we can do it without any dramatic effects on the look or design of the car. It’s going to be difficult though,” said Toni Simonetti, a GM spokeswoman.

Congress is considering legislation calling for the elimination of CFCs by the year 2000, and at least 20 states are reviewing proposals aimed at curbing pollution from CFCs. Vermont has banned the use of CFCs in auto air conditioners after 1994.

Du Pont has spent more than $100 million on research for CFCs substitutes and estimates it will spend as much as $1 billion to build production plants and to cover other costs during a 10-year transition period. ICI Americas, another major manufacturer, has also spent $100 million in replacement research and recently announced plans to begin production of a substitute cooling agent by 1992 at a new Louisiana plant.

But developing substitute chemicals will not be enough.

As much as 30% of today’s demand for CFCs will have to be eliminated by conservation and recycling, government and industry experts say. Major appliance manufacturers as well as auto makers have recently supplied their repair shops with equipment to capture CFCs rather than let the old coolant vent into the air.

But EPA and industry officials acknowledge that routine venting of old CFCs is still widespread.

Shifts to new manufacturing procedures or altogether new technology could account for a 30% reduction in demand for CFCs, especially in the electronics industry, the experts say.

But some critics say that industry is slow to accept new technology. “What we’re facing is inertia,” said Marc Goldberg of Crynodynamics, a New Jersey-based company that is producing a refrigeration system using helium as a cooling agent. The system is being marketed primarily for commercial uses. The major auto makers have expressed little interest.

Companies such as AT&T; and Northern Telecom are turning to new manufacturing procedures to reduce leftover residues and eliminate the need for CFCs as a solvent for cleaning circuit boards after soldering.

“This (problem) has caused a whole new review of the way we do business,” says A. D. Fitzgerald, director of environmental affairs at Northern Telecom, a Canadian-based manufacturer of telephone equipment.

The thorniest problems have emerged in the area of refrigeration and air conditioning because all substitutes under consideration pose energy and environmental trade-offs, particularly in the area of global warming.

A bill putting a time limit on use of HCFCs as substitutes for chlorofluorocarbons has been approved by a Senate environmental subcommittee, but its prospects in Congress are uncertain.

Environmentalists say, meanwhile, that even the less-potent HCFCs will be a dangerous threat to ozone depletion if the amount used worldwide is dramatically increased over the next century.

The HCFC family of substitutes should be looked at only as a “bridge” solution and industry should not be allowed to “sit back and be happy once they made the one-step transition,” says David Doniger, an attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council.