President Donald Trump said he’s easing requirements on planet-warming refrigerants, touting the move as a way to cut costs for consumers as he looks to address voters’ affordability concerns before November midterms.
This set of gases was developed because they don’t deplete the ozone so much, but they’re incredibly potent greenhouse gases, which is why there’s an effort to end their use.
Right. One issue is that the US’s glidepath towards low GWP includes significant HFO usage (which is a PFAS) rather than speedrunning natural refrigerants which are the only sustainable long term solution. So we’ll likely have more warming, but less PFAS as a result of this, along with higher costs and more uncertainty. The focus needs to be on natural refrigerants though long term.
Exactly! There is way too much fearmongering about things like hydrocarbon refrigerants. I find it kind of funny how the EPA says you can’t have more than 1lb of R290 in a hermetically sealed refrigeration system but doesn’t give a shit that a large portion of the population has leaky 30lb tanks of the stuff sitting under their BBQ grills right next to their house.
Plus there’s CO2 although the main obstacle for that is just how heniously expensive those systems are. But a large part of that expense is just making transcritical refrigeration work. If we started building buildings with CO2 refrigeration in mind and started mandating installing geothermal heat exchanger loops for all new construction then you just use that to cool the CO2 and eliminate the whole transcritical issue and a massive chunk of the cost for those systems.
Also old ozone depleting gasses are still used. They just can’t be manufactured or imported anymore. But prior to being banned, enough were stockpiled that they’re still only moderately expensive. We do still ocasionally get places like old grocery stores blowing 500lbs of good old ozone depleting R22 into the air when leaks happen. Hell, it was only in the past decade or so that R-12 finally got too expensive to be usable.
That’s actually the most anoying thing about the ban being delayed. We already know from experience that it would have taken decades to have a real effect and now it’s just going to take longer. We don’t have decades.
This set of gases was developed because they don’t deplete the ozone so much, but they’re incredibly potent greenhouse gases, which is why there’s an effort to end their use.
Right. One issue is that the US’s glidepath towards low GWP includes significant HFO usage (which is a PFAS) rather than speedrunning natural refrigerants which are the only sustainable long term solution. So we’ll likely have more warming, but less PFAS as a result of this, along with higher costs and more uncertainty. The focus needs to be on natural refrigerants though long term.
Exactly! There is way too much fearmongering about things like hydrocarbon refrigerants. I find it kind of funny how the EPA says you can’t have more than 1lb of R290 in a hermetically sealed refrigeration system but doesn’t give a shit that a large portion of the population has leaky 30lb tanks of the stuff sitting under their BBQ grills right next to their house.
Plus there’s CO2 although the main obstacle for that is just how heniously expensive those systems are. But a large part of that expense is just making transcritical refrigeration work. If we started building buildings with CO2 refrigeration in mind and started mandating installing geothermal heat exchanger loops for all new construction then you just use that to cool the CO2 and eliminate the whole transcritical issue and a massive chunk of the cost for those systems.
Also old ozone depleting gasses are still used. They just can’t be manufactured or imported anymore. But prior to being banned, enough were stockpiled that they’re still only moderately expensive. We do still ocasionally get places like old grocery stores blowing 500lbs of good old ozone depleting R22 into the air when leaks happen. Hell, it was only in the past decade or so that R-12 finally got too expensive to be usable.
That’s actually the most anoying thing about the ban being delayed. We already know from experience that it would have taken decades to have a real effect and now it’s just going to take longer. We don’t have decades.