Abstract |
The United States Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA) has identified the recovery of HFC-134a, a vehicle refrigerant used in 1995 and newer model years, from End of Life Vehicles (ELVs) as a greenhouse gas reduction strategy. This analysis estimates the amount of HFC-134a remaining in the air-conditioning units of California's population of ELVs, defined as vehicles that have been issued a junk title or salvage certificate over their lifetime, to determine if enforcement of federal regulations pertaining to its removal and storage on licensed vehicle dismantler lots in California is warranted. To determine the amount of HFC-134a remaining in ELVs, refrigerant samples, including HFC-134a and its predecessor, R-12, were obtained from 2,002 ELVs on 30 licensed vehicle dismantler lots throughout California frm January 2008 through August 2009. Of these sampled vehicles, 1,340, or 67& were ELVs. Across the sampled ELVs containing HFC-134a, an average of 27% of the vehicles' total refrigerant capacity, or 220 grams of HFC 134a, was recovered. The amount of HFC-134a recovered from sampled ELVs varied widely by vehicle and was not strongly correlated with vehicle or geographic specific characteristics. |