Where the ozone meets the road

You mean all that eco-friendly enviro-idealistic stuff comes with a price? Uh-huh. More than 2/3 as much according to this Scottsdale repair shop:

It's going to be a more expensive summer for some Arizona motorists this year. Prices for air-conditioning recharges are rising because of a controversial change in European policy that limits the supply of the refrigerant used in late-model vehicles.

At the Car Repair Company in Scottsdale, the average price for air-conditioning service has risen to $85 from a recent average of $50, owner Jim Atkinson said. That includes a pound of R-134a, the gaseous refrigerant used in car and truck air-conditioners since 1995.

Atkinson's father, an engineer and an "expert" on automotive-cooling systems, points out the problem: "This thing is a major, major international issue," said Atkinson's father, Ward, a Scottsdale engineer and leading authority on automotive air-conditioning systems.

A "major, major international issue," you say? Pressure from European concerns is forcing a shortage of R-134a in the US and driving up the price:

The situation arises from the European Community's plan for a wholesale changeover of auto air-conditioning systems to use a carbon-dioxide-based refrigerant. The change, which would go into effect in 2011 or 2012, is being promoted because of possible global-warming issues connected with R-134a, a fluorocarbon, that are negated by the new compound, known as R125. That compound is already in use in many stationary air-conditioning systems in Europe, Atkinson said. The planned changeover has caused most European manufacturers to abandon production of R-134a and some Japanese manufacturers to scale back in favor of the carbon dioxide refrigerant. "The only plants left in the world today are mainly in the United States and China, which have to meet the demand for the whole world," Ward Atkinson said.

I'm all for being smart about what we do and don't release into the atmosphere, but nothing makes my blood boil more than seeing prices go up drastically as a result of quick and drastic technology shifts. R-134a has been the standard for years and it's replacement of R-12 (Freon) in the 1990's is, to my mind, sufficient help in curbing potentially harmful destruction of the ozone viewed in combination with other environmental restrictions.

Meanwhile, the push for R-125 is driving up the price of R-134a while at the same time being near un-usable in a clime like ours:

"The U.S. and Europe are likely to go separate ways with CO{-2} refrigerant," Junichiro Hara, an engineer at the Japanese firm Calsonic Kansei Corp., told WardsAuto.com. "

The U.S. will not accept it. Europe will probably adopt it." There are several problems with carbon-dioxide refrigerant, Ward Atkinson said, including weight, cost and possible toxic leakage. But the greatest obstacle is that the systems do not work effectively in hot climates, such as Arizona summers."

In Arizona, it doesn't cool worth a darn," the engineer said. "CO{-2} looks great if you run it at 75 degrees Fahrenheit ambient. Once you get above 85 or 90 degrees, it's less efficient."

Once started, these things don't usually reverse. So that $85-dollar recharge will eventually become a $109-dollar recharge, and so on, and so on, and so on...

Thanks guys!