From: jgd@dixie.com (John De Armond)
Subject: Re: Intrepid and Ozone A/C 
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 92 04:33:01 GMT
Organization: Dixie Communications Public Access.  The Mouth of the South.

cid@athena.mit.edu (Derek H Cedillo) writes:

>Quoted from advertisement between pages 54 and 55 of the Nov. 16th Issue
>of Newsweek:
>"The air conditioning refrigerant cools without harming the ozone."

>*round of applause for the Intrepid*

Just shows P.T. Barnum was right.  As with most of this econazi stuff,
reality is a bit more nasty than the lovely shade of green painted
by the ad agencies.

The refrigerant is R-134a, a hyperfluroinated hydrocarbon refrigerant.
According to the ozone theory of the day, it causes minimal damage to
to the ozone layer.  This is subject to change since this is all smoke
and mirrors.  Even though zero damage is claimed, EPA still requires it
to be captured and disposed of. Just like R-12.

While it "solves" what is likely to be a mythological problem, it brings
some real world problems to the car owner.  All the materials used in
an R-134a system are new and have unknown health effects.  R-134a
has caused testicular cancer in lab rats.  While I place little faith
in lab rat tests, it should be noted that R-12 is proven safe under
all conditions that do not cause molecular disintegration.  Similarly
reports are already coming in that the polyalkaneglycol (PAG) oil used in 
R-134a systems causes severe skin irritation to some technicians.
PAG has yet to pass the health screens so its long term effects are 
unknown.  

While non-flammable at atmospheric pressure, R-134a does become flammable
at slightly elevated pressures (<5 psi).  Thus we replace a non-flammable
refrigerant with one that can be ignited.  This is not as much of a 
problem as it may appear because freon/oil, as emits from a leak, is 
also flammable.

On the maintenance front, the situation looks even more bleak.  The current
price of R-134a is around $10 a pound.  Limited availability can cause
a 30 lb can to cost as much as $1000 by the time it makes it to the 
service technician.  Compare this to R-12 which went for $0.30 a pound
before the econazis went on assault and even with the green tax, still
costs only around $3 a pound.  This translates into stratospheric 
repair costs.  Worse, no mixing at all is allowed between R-134a 
and conventional systems.  Even traces of chloride ions cause 
rapid failure.  The literature reports as little as 1% contamination 
with R-11 causing compressor failure inside a week of operation.

Lastly but not leastly, the cooling capacity of R-134a is about 30% less
than that of R-12.  That means larger condensers, larger compressors,
more power required to drive the compressor, lower economy and so on.

There were alternatives that would have accomplished the same objective
but since none of them had the political might of R-134a, R-134a is
what you get.  Now doesn't that make you feel good.

John

-- 
John De Armond, WD4OQC               |Interested in high performance mobility?  
Performance Engineering Magazine (TM) |
Marietta, Ga                         |Interested in high tech and computers? 
jgd@dixie.com                        |Write me about PE Magazine
Need Usenet public Access in Atlanta?  Write Me for info on Dixie.com.
Newsgroups: rec.autos