When it's hot, should you turn on the car's air-conditioner?
As many will have experienced, driving with the air-conditioner on can increase fuel consumption by 10% or more. Yet, especially at higher speeds, using air-conditioning is more economic than driving with the windows open, since the air drag created by the open windows will make the car consume even more fuel.
Apart from the fuel cost, we should also worry about global warming. But - you might say - once we're all driving electric cars and the electricity comes from clean and safe sources, such as wind and solar power, we should be OK either way, shouldn't we?
Well, the refrigerants used in air conditioners and refrigerators can be still damage the environment. The refrigerants in older systems may damage the ozone layer, reason why they were later often substituted by hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs). However, HFCs are harmful greenhouse gases - their global warming impact is many times that of carbon dioxide (see table below). Between 2001-2003, the rise in atmospheric concentrations of HFCs was 13-17% per year, according to the IPCC.
General Electric (GE) has just asked the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for approval to - for the first time in the U.S. - use a hydrocarbon refrigerant in household refrigerators. Hydrocarbons do little or no damage to the environment. If GE gains EPA approval, it plans to introduce HFC-free household refridgerators in 2010.
| Global Warming Potential (100 year basis, relative to CO2=1) | Ozone Depletion Potential (relative to R11=1) | ||
| R12 CFC (Chlorofluorocarbon) | 8500 | 1 | |
| R134a HFC (Hydrofluorocarbon) | 1300 | 0 | |
| R22 HCFC (Hydrochlorofluorocarbon) | 1700 | 0.05 | |
| R404a HFC (Hydrofluorocarbon) | 3800 | 0 | |
| R290 HC (Hydrocarbon) | <3 | 0 | |
| source: Foster Refrigerator | |||
So, while this GE-announcement is good news, it's sad that it has taken this long. Hydrocarbon refrigerants are already in widespread use in the rest of the world. Greenpeace helped develop the technology that uses hydrocarbon refrigerants back in the 1990s. The world's major manufacturers -- Whirlpool, Bosch, Haier, Panasonic, LG, Miele, Electrolux, Siemens -- have now produced some 300 million refrigerators that use hydrocarbon refrigerants.
It's time that we have effective legislation to facilitate the shift towards clean and safe products. I have often advocated feebates as a superior policy, compared to standards, carbon taxes or emission cap-and-trade schemes. Many support the introduction of feebates for appliances (see California's Climate Change Proposals). However, others suggest that outright prohibition of HFCs in refrigerators and air conditioners is more appropriate.
What do you think?
Links:
After 15 year Delay, Green Refrigerator to Arrive in U.S., sort of - Solveclimate Blog
http://solveclimate.com/blog/20081031/after-15-year-delay-green-refrigerator-arrive-u-s-sort
GE Opening a Door to a Future of Cleaner Home Refrigeration - GE News Release
http://www.genewscenter.com/content/Detail.asp?ReleaseID=4303&NewsAreaID=2
Greenfreeze - Greenpeace
http://www.greenpeace.org/international/campaigns/climate-change/solutions/greenfreeze
Safeguarding the Ozone Layer and the Global Climate System Issues related to Hydrofluorocarbons and Perfluorocarbons, Summary for Policymakers - IPCC/TEAP (2005)
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/special-reports/sroc/sroc_ts.pdf (2.01 MB)
Hydrocarbons in refrigeration - Foster Refrigerator
http://www.fosterrefrigerator.co.uk/uploadeddocuments/Green%20Papers/NJB0236_Hydrocarbon_Green_Paper.pdf
Cool approach to driving - Sydney Morning Herald
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2008/12/16/1229189623054.html
California's Climate Change Proposals - by Sam Carana
http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474977517006
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Comments: 28
Another comment describes how in Spain people also got offered incentives (I believe it was 80€ per fridge), but only when buyers of new fridges brought their old fridge along. The store gives people the money towards the new purchase and the store does all the paperwork, so it's much like trading in an old car.
Other than that, you routinely present the more thoughtful side of Green. While I can't always agree with your solutions, the detail you put out blankets the efforts of most enviros. Keep up the good work.
The project was paid for by Whirlpool and Southern CA Edison (the power company) This could be done anywhere and tax credits given to the participating power companies and refrigerator mfgrs.
As for mandates, yes! We have not done enough government regulation so we have allowed profits to trump over the long term survival of our total society. How stupid is that?
It's bad enough that all TV energy consumption is doubling, through the high energy use of the new TV's, or the addition of a set-up box, there is no escaping it.
In the LNG industry hydrocarbons have been in use as refirgerant for 40 years because of their low dew points.
The GE Press Release says that GE plans to include isobutane in a new GE Monogram® brand refrigerator. This refrigerator will also use cyclopentane, another hydrocarbon, as the insulation foam-blowing agent to replace commonly used HFC foam blowing agents. The Press Release concludes that the climate change benefits could be significant.
The IPCC report says: "Ammonia and those hydrocarbons (HCs) used as halocarbon substitutes have atmospheric lifetimes ranging from days to months, and the direct and indirect radiative forcings associated with their use as substitutes are very likely to have a negligible effect on global climate".
Yes, that's a great program. More details can be found at the Recycle My Old Fridge Campaign and the Energy Star Rating program. I wonder if Obama is considering such tax credits as part of a federal policy.
Thanks for that comment! According to one comment there, buyers of new appliances in Ontaria don't pay provincial sales taxes if purchasing all Energy Star appliances. A feebate program could be built around local sales taxes, i.e. extra taxes for the most polluting appliances, with the proceeds used towards funding reduced or no taxes for cleaner appliances. That would be an alternative to imposing new taxes and granting subsidies or tax credits to manufacturers.
The Bush administration has systematically manipulated the market, e.g. by sending troops in Iraq to secure oil supply and by setting low emission standards. A true market-oriented approach would stop protection, subsidies and support for suppliers who inflict environmental damage and harm many people. Without such intervention by the Bush administration in the market, we would have had clean and safe ways to produce energy (such as wind and solar power) long ago.
We face a huge challenge to make up for the disastrous policies of the past. The feebates that I propose are not only the most effective way to tackle this challenge, they also optimize market mechanisms and consumer choice and they minimize the build-up of government bureaucracy. A feebate policy can be budget-neutral and can be implemented locally. A feebate policy constitutes the least possible government manipulation of the market and can phase itself out as it achieves the shift towards clean and safe products.
Here in Australia the Government's emissions trading scheme is leveling the playing field by including the high global warming potential refrigerants in the new Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, thereby putting a price on the pollution impacts of HFCs and HCFCs, and creating market incentives for the uptake of natural refrigerants including ammonia, carbon dioxide and hydrocarbons across all appliances and systems. This establishes a significant example for other countries to follow, but the first thing that needs to happen in the US is to remove the regulatory obstacles to naturals imposed by the USEPA through the "Significant New Alternatives Program".
Incorporating the environmental costs of HCFCs and HFCs needs to happen at the national level to ensure consistent outcomes, and to create incentives for manufacturers to make better environmental choices available to consumers, and large end users of commercial refrigeration.
Natural refrigerant solutions are becoming increasingly available, and if we are to have any chance of meeting the challenge of reducing emissions, the US can't afford to let green CO2 supermarket solutions sit on the shelf for 15 years, as US fridge manufacturers have done with hydrocarbons.
Brian Elfin's point on containment is an old argument used by proponents of fluorocarbons for years, but the reality is that all refrigerants eventually escape to atmosphere. This point has finally been recognised by the Australian Government at least, that is raising the price of all HFCs imported, and enabling carbon credits to be generated for any refrigerant successfully recovered and destroyed.
Best regards - Brent
I've read that utilities in Australia are now funding rebates of up to $AU7500 on solar panels; in return, the utilities will obtain credits from the government. Does a similar policy exist to encourage people to switch to cleaner refrigerators and air conditioners? In some ways, this looks like a feebate policy, in the sense that polluters pay extra, while better alternatives get rebates. However, I would prefer to see specific pollution linked more closely and directly to better alternatives locally, with polluters financing rebates on those better alternatives. My fear is that the Australian approach will allow polluters to get off the hook by buying credits globally, without the money going to better alternatives, but instead financing more gasoline cars with polluting air conditioners in places like India and Africa. I look forward to see your view on this, Brent!
BTW, the EPA in the US appears to have put up elaborate bureaucratic hurdles against manufacturers who want to produce cleaner refrigerators and air conditioners. I'm sure that next year, as the new administration moves in, some big changes will happen at the EPA.
The problem is that these substitutes contribute to climate change. When the Kyoto Protocol was introduced in 1997, it did cover HFCs, but the US never ratified the Kyoto Protocol. PFCs are also covered in the Kyoto protocol, but Nitrogen Trifluoride (NF3) was used in such small quantities that it was not deemed necessary to include it. Semiconductor manufacturers turned to NF3 as a substitute for PFCs and it is widely used as a cleaning agent during manufacture of liquid crystal displays (LCDs) and thin-film solar panels.
There are alternatives to using NF3, such as using fluorine gas, as I mentioned in an earlier comment. I've often advocated feebates to facilitate shifting to better alternatives, but given that NF3 is some 17,000 times more potent than CO2 as a greenhouse gas, it makes sense to ban NF3 altogether. What do you think?
But do we really have control of all the retired air conditioners, cars and refrigerators out there in people's backyards and junkyards? We need positive cradle-to-grave manufacturer responsibility for this, and that means governmental will.
"And enabling carbon credits to be generated for any refrigerant successfully recovered and destroyed" means that it has to be cost effective to make people take responsibility for their used appliances and autos. The responsibility of government is to make it easier for people to do the right thing. Religion can help people find and strengthen their own conscience, but only government can ensure your neighbors listen to theirs. A free market economy is only sustainable when externalities are built into the equation. I hope the new leadership can steer the ship of state quickly enough in spite of its bureaucratic bulk to turn things around while we have the chance.
Regulators say other, less harmful gases can be used instead, at a small cost to semiconductor firms. CARB estimates the annual cost of compliance with the new rules at $37 million over 10 years; the brunt of that total would fall on 13 semiconductor companies that operate 16 plants currently not in compliance with the new emissions target. [Mercury News, 02/26/2009]
CFCs like Freon-12 (R-12 or CFC-12) are not mentioned, even though the IPCC as far back as 2001 said that CFC-12 had an even stronger radiative forcing effect than N2O. As discussed, CFCs are not targeted under the Kyoto Protocol since they were already banned under the Montreal Protocol, but this ban made manufacturers turn to instead use HFCs and PFCs as substitutes.
Meanwhile, Micronesia and Mauritius have initiated a proposal to expand the Montreal Protocol to phase down HFCs. Backed by the EPA finding, the Obama administration is seen as likely to support such moves.
There will be a meeting in Geneva, 15–18 July 2009, discussing the proposal by Micronesia and Mauritius to phase out HFCs under the Montreal Protocol.
As the U.S. Department of State says in a press release issued September 15, 2009, the problem of HFCs is closely linked to the accelerated phase out of hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs). As the demand for air conditioning and refrigeration increases globally, and as countries accelerate their efforts to phase out HCFCs to protect the ozone layer, producers of such products will turn increasingly to HFCs unless suitable alternatives can be identified. Although HFCs pose no threat to the stratospheric ozone layer, they risk exacerbating the problem of climate change as potent greenhouse gases. Phasing down consumption and production of HFCs will send an important signal about the need for alternatives that pose no problem either for the ozone layer or for the climate system.
N2O is not regulated by the Montreal Protocol, as it was instead supposed to be regulated under the Kyoto Protocol, but the outcome of this study supports calls for N2O to be included in the Montreal Protocol, especially if other international agreements fail to result in decisive action.
The new refrigerant, HFO-1234yf, was developed jointly by Honeywell and DuPont to help the automotive industry comply with the European Union’s Mobile Air Conditioning Directive that will require auto makers to use refrigerants with a global warming potential (GWP) below 150 from 2011.
HFO-1234yf has a GWP of 4. This compared with a GWP of 1,430 for HFC-134a, currently in use in many automotive A/C systems, according to a report in TireBusiness.com.
In addition to tests conducted by DuPont and others, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has conducted its own evaluation of the product and has proposed a rule under the federal Significant New Alternatives Policy (SNAP) that would approve HFO-1234yf for use in mobile air conditioning systems, according to a DuPont news release.
As anticipated (see above comments), the U.S. delegation pushed to amend the Montreal Protocol to allow for an HFC phase-down, supported by Canada and Mexico, and backed by an even stronger proposal from Micronesia and Mauritius and other island nations.
However, the meeting ended with no amendment and no binding decision on HFCs. Instead, 41 nations signed a weak 'declaration of intent'. For more background, see this Reuters report.