The national economic downturn has slowed replacement in buildings of comfort cooling chillers that use chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). Manufacturers predict that by year-end, 48% of the original 80,000 CFC chillers will still rely on the refrigerants that were banned from U.S. production at the end of 1995 due to concerns about depletion of the Earth's protective ozone layer.
A survey of large tonnage liquid chiller manufacturers by the Air Conditioning and Refrigeration Institute (ARI) revealed that 2,931 CFC chillers were converted to non-CFCs refrigerants or replaced by new non-CFC equipment during 2001, with 3,124 more expected in 2002, leaving an estimated 38,281 CFC units still in use.