CFC R-12

R-12 users have been more affected by the 1996 phaseout than others due to its wide spread use and the highly emittive nature of many key R-12 applications, such as automotive air conditioners, single dose medication inhalers, and ethylene-oxide sterilizers. The real problem has been increasing since production halted at the end of 1995. There are about 142 million vehicles with air conditioning systems driven by R-12. There are tens of thousands of additional small systems at the secondary retail level. Most large chain stores are well into, or have completed, their transition.

Users have been responding to choices they have regarding retrofit, replacement, or recharge when their systems go down. Currently they seem willing to pay a high price for R-12; in 1996, reports indicated virgin R-12 sold at wholesale for $285 ($9.50 per pound) in 30lb cylinders. At the height of the 1996 cooling season prices rose to over $600 per cylinder ($20 per pound). Owners of large systems like chillers who need fairly large quantities of refrigerant to keep their systems running will be at a distinct disadvantage versus these folks. At some future point the replacement of a lost charge on a chiller exceed the cost of either retrofitting it or even buying a new unit if the cost of R-12 is at or near $100 per pound. And again, $100 per pound could occur - but not yet - as the shortfall of demand versus supply following the phaseout could reach at 20-50 million pounds.