Defense firms launch into environmental exports.Industry develops expertise to tackle toxic problems Los Angeles-based Hughes Aircraft Hughes Aircraft Company was a major aerospace and defense company founded by Howard Hughes. The group was based near Ballona Creek, in Culver City, California, USA, on the Pacific Coast. Hughes Aircraft was acquired by General Motors in 1985. Co., which has patented two environmentally friendly products that keep ozone-depleting chlorofluorocarbons chlorofluorocarbons (klōr'əfl  r`əkär'bənz, klôr'–) (CFCs), organic compounds that contain carbon, chlorine, and fluorine atoms. out of the air, will begin making those products available in Japan by early 1993, said Hughes officials. The new venture marks the latest of a growing number of cases in which Southland defense and aerospace companies, faced with declining U.S. government contracts, are diversifying into environmental endeavors abroad. Such companies have been stung by enormous environmental cleanup costs in recent years. As a result, they have developed an expertise in cleaning up the environment. And now, a few are finding overseas markets for their newfound expertise. One of the products Hughes is taking overseas is a water-soluble flux based on citric acid citric acid or 2-hydroxy-1,2,3-propanetricarboxylic acid, HO2CCH2C(OH)(CO2H)CH2CO2 from lemons, called HF1189, because it was developed November 1989. Flux is a substance -- usually rosin rosin or colophony, hard, brittle, translucent resin, obtained as a solid residue from crude turpentine. Usually pale yellow or amber, its color may vary from brownish-black to transparent depending on the nature of the source of the crude -- used to help metals fuse together in soldering. Typically, CFC-based solvents are used to clean the flux from the metal after soldering. Hughes officials said HF1189 will allow the company to eliminate two-thirds of the CFC-based solvents it has been using on soldered military electronics. The second product, called "super-Scrub," puts carbon dioxide carbon dioxide, chemical compound, CO2, a colorless, odorless, tasteless gas that is about one and one-half times as dense as air under ordinary conditions of temperature and pressure. under great pressure to super-clean all types of electronic parts. Chlorofluorocarbons, being phased out by international agreement by the year 2000, are used in the manufacture of nearly all high-quality electronics around the world, according to Hughes' literature. Bob Beach, business manager for HF1189, said Hughes Environmental Systems Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary Wholly Owned Subsidiary A subsidiary whose parent company owns 100% of its common stock. Notes: In other words, the parent company owns the company outright and there are no minority owners. founded in 1989, will team up with the Japanese conglomerate C. Itoh & Co. to manufacture and sell the citrus-based flux in Japan. Beach said Hughes is also pursuing licensing the product in Canada, Mexico and Europe. HF1189 has been recently licensed for domestic distribution by Chicago-based Kester Solder, as well, Beach added. Since the product was announced by company officials earlier this year, Beach said he has received calls from more than 1,000 companies interested in it. Dick Talley, a regional director for Hughes International, said Hughes has also struck an agreement with C. Itoh and Erie, Penn.-based Autoclave autoclave Vessel, usually of steel, able to withstand high temperatures and pressures. The chemical industry uses various types of autoclaves in manufacturing dyes and in other chemical reactions requiring high pressures. Engineers Group to sell its carbon-dioxide cleaner. Meanwhile, Calabasas-based Lockheed Corp. has teamed up with NASA NASA: see National Aeronautics and Space Administration. NASA in full National Aeronautics and Space Administration Independent U.S. to use satellites for tracking global change. Lockheed's Palo Alto Research Laboratories developed a satellite-anchored instrument dubbed the "cryogenic limb array etalon In optical networking, an etalon is a passive filter that uses a Fabry-Perot cavity. See Fabry-Perot. spectrometer," which measures the levels of nitric acid nitric acid, chemical compound, HNO3, colorless, highly corrosive, poisonous liquid that gives off choking red or yellow fumes in moist air. It is miscible with water in all proportions. and chlorine nitrate -- key causers of the ozone hole over Antarctica. Data collected in the Southern Hemisphere from June through September 1992, once analyzed, is expected to make major contributions to scientists' understanding of the evolution of the hole. Like Hughes, Lockheed recently formed an environmental subsidiary. Lockheed Environmental Systems and Technologies Co. was launched in July 1992 in Houston and now employs 600 people, said Keith Mordoff, a spokesman for Lockheed. Mordoff said Lockheed Environmental is overseeing the cleanup of contaminated contaminated, v 1. made radioactive by the addition of small quantities of radioactive material. 2. made contaminated by adding infective or radiographic materials. 3. an infective surface or object. soil and ground water at the company's Burbank site. Mordoff said Lockheed Environmental isn't doing any overseas work yet. But, he added, the company is "evaluating the international market." Other defense and aerospace companies are just in the genesis stage of getting their environmental programs off the ground. Jim Hart, a spokesman for Century City-based aircraft manufacturer Northrop Corp., said Northrop has an active environmental management department but it is concentrating its efforts on solving the company's internal environmental problems. "We're not ruling out (doing environmental work for outside customers)," Hart said. "But we haven't made any announcements on specific moves in the environmental area." Northrop and Rockwell International Corp., the Seal Beach-based aerospace company, are among a number of firms in Southern California who have teamed up with the South Coast Air Quality Management District The South Coast Air Quality Management District (SCAQMD), formed in 1976, is the air pollution agency responsible mainly for regulating stationary sources of air pollution for most of Los Angeles, San Bernardino, Riverside County, and all of Orange county. to develop and transfer clean-air technologies to area businesses at no cost. As those products and technologies mature, trade experts said, defense and aerospace companies will increasingly look to market them overseas. |
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