What's New List Serve Post Display

New measure to reduce climate changing emissions. Release 09-14
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 26, 2009
	  	  	
Stanley Young
916-322-2990
www.arb.ca.gov

ARB controls use of potent chemicals that contribute to global
warming

SACRAMENTO -- The Air Resources Board today adopted regulations
to control, and in some cases phase out, potent chemicals used in
the manufacture of computer chips and other industries that
contribute to global warming at many times greater than carbon
dioxide.

“These chemicals, though used in small quantities, pose a danger
to the planet because they have such a high capacity to trap
atmospheric heat,” said ARB Chairman Mary Nichols.  “We developed
these regulations in concert with the industries that use them.
They are cost-efficient ways of fighting climate change that will
promote the use of less damaging alternatives.”

A single pound of the greenhouse gases addressed in the
regulations traps heat in the atmosphere at levels ranging from
6,500 to 23,900 times the ability of a single pound of carbon
dioxide. A pound of sulfur hexafluoride released into the
atmosphere has the same amount of heat-trapping potential as 10
metric tons of carbon dioxide or driving 25,000 miles – the
equivalent of circling the globe.

The semiconductor regulation sets new maximum allowable
greenhouse gas emission limits for the use of a variety of
greenhouse gases from the manufacture of computer chips and
related operations.  The regulation, which also requires
additional reporting and record-keeping of the controlled gases,
is estimated to cost approximately $21 to prevent the equivalent
of a single ton of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere. 
Approximately 85 operations, mostly based in the Silicon Valley,
will be affected by these regulations.

The second regulation directly regulates the use of sulfur
hexafluoride, the most potent of the fluorinated gases, in
applications other than for electric utilities and computer chip
manufacture such as magnesium casting and where it is used as a
cover gas during production. Designed to phase out the use of the
gas (except in certain exempted applications) over several years,
the regulation has an estimated cost per metric ton of carbon
dioxide equivalent reduced of approximately $2.

The regulations are part of a series of discrete early actions
as called for under AB 32, California’s pioneering climate change
legislation signed in 2006, and will be in force starting in
2010. Both regulations were developed over the past year using a
public process that included working and technical groups, public
workshops, and meetings with industry associations, individual
companies and air districts.

The regulations taken together are estimated to prevent the
equivalent of the carbon dioxide emissions from 56,000 cars
driven for a year in 2020.

The Air Resources Board is a department of the California
Environmental Protection Agency.  ARB’s mission is to promote and
protect public health, welfare, and ecological resources through
effective reduction of air pollutants while recognizing and
considering effects on the economy.  The ARB oversees all air
pollution control efforts in California to attain and maintain
health based air quality standards.

#####