CFC transition: Cleaner air, improved efficiency, significant savings

This article describes how one manufacturing facility met the challenge of leading its company and industry in eliminating CFCs and gained a payback of improved efficiency as well as significant financial dan energy savings. With the signing of the Montreal Protocol, National Semiconductor`s South Portland, Maine integrated circuit manufacturing facility faced a dilemma: how best to continue the facility`s chiller plant improvement plan, designed to reduce operating costs, while faced with the requirement to eliminate chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) from its chillers. The challenge was not unlike that faced by many companies--large and small--in response to meeting provisions of the Clean Air Act of 1990, which requires the elimination of CFCs in air conditioning, refrigeration, and manufacturing processes and a total ban on their production and use by January 1, 2000.