Car
coolant rejected by Daimler is safe, say EU scientists
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[March 08, 2014]
BRUSSELS (Reuters) — EU scientists have
found that the new car coolant at the centre of a dispute that has
pitched regulators against Germany and its luxury carmaker Daimler does
not pose any serious safety risks, the European Commission said on
Friday.
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The Commission, the EU executive, has launched legal proceedings
against Germany over Daimler's refusal to stop using an old-style
coolant that has global warming potential more than 1,000 times
greater than that of carbon dioxide.
The suggested substitute, which has roughly the same impact as
carbon dioxide, is the R1234yf coolant developed by U.S.
conglomerate Honeywell in partnership with Dupont.
Daimler says that the substitute can emit a toxic gas when it burns,
but its refusal to use the product has placed it in breach of an EU
law that requires new cars to use coolants with a global warming
potential no more than 150 times that of carbon dioxide.
In what it described as "a confidence-building measure", the
Commission asked the Joint Research Council (JRC), set up to provide
impartial scientific advice for policymakers, to carry out a new
assessment of R1234yf.
"There is no evidence of a serious risk in the use of this
refrigerant in mobile air-conditioning systems under normal and
foreseeable conditions of use," the JRC concluded in its report
published on Friday.
Daimler issued a statement saying that the research was "too
restrictive". The carmaker said that its preferred option is to
develop air-conditioning systems that use carbon dioxide as a
refrigerant. Development of such a system, however, could take
years.
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Honeywell and Dupont both welcomed the JRC's findings. Honeywell
said there are now more than 500,000 cars using R1234yf and the
number is expected to reach more than two million by the end of this
year.
(Reporting by Barbara Lewis; additional reporting by Edward Taylor
in Frankfurt; editing by David Goodman)
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