Tuesday Morning Guest Rant [Joe Mannix]

I recently went through an HVAC system replacement. One of the reasons (a minor reason, but in the equation) is that my very old air conditioner used refrigerant that is no longer available. It was bad for the ozone layer, you see, so it was banned just like original Freon was. It isn't impossible to get, but it is impossible to get at an affordable price.

In the process of doing my homework on the replacement, I learned that the dominant refrigerant used for household air conditioning in the United States today - R-410A - is also going to be banned in the not too distant future. But why? Its "Ozone Depletion Potential" (ODP) is zero. R-410A doesn't damage the ozone layer even theoretically, so what gives?

What gives is the preposterous nonsense of "GWP" - that is, "Global Warming Potential." GWP is calculated by taking the absorption capacity of the gas for infrared, atmospheric life expectancy of the gas, and the time period of interest. It is indexed against the Dread Carbon. CO2 has a GWP of 1. Anything more greenhousey than the Dread Carbon has a GWP of >1 over the standardized 100-year time period. R410-A has a GWP score of around 1,800 (maybe - the number changes by venue, which is a great sign...). One ton of R410-A released into the atmosphere is - according to this scheme - the equivalent to releasing around 1,800 tons of the Dread Carbon.

So R-410A has to go. It will be replaced in the mid-term with something with a much lower GWP score, likely in the mid-hundreds. But it will not be without cost. Refrigerant transitions are expensive, and refrigerant unavailability profoundly changes the cost/benefit assessment on repairing a system vs. replacing it. How much more "global warming potential" is realized by manufacturing new equipment to replace old equipment that cannot be affordably serviced due to synthetic barriers?

There are also non-economic considerations. A good refrigerant should be non-flammable, non-toxic, non-corrosive and stable. It should operate effectively at low pressure if possible, as lower pressures are easier to maintain (fewer leaks, longer lifespan). Original Freon was all of these. R-22 was all of these. R-410A is most of these, although it requires higher pressure. The lower-GWP refrigerants that will likely replace R-410A are all classified as "mildly flammable." As the GWP goes down, the flammability usually goes up. Propane, for example, works well as a refrigerant and has very low GWP but is, of course, highly flammable.

That isn't too big a deal if a leak happens outside and torches off. The condenser and compressor will burn up, but it's unlikely to burn your house down. A leak on the inside, though, is another story - especially if you have a traditional split system with a gas furnace. The risks associated with mildly-flammable refrigerants are probably small, but they're risks that needn't be taken. They're risks that will be forced upon people thanks to the climate cultists.

So around we will go again. We'll be artificially phasing out an effective, safe product in favor of a less-safe product that will necessitate unnecessary new product manufacturing and transportation and tremendous costs to the end customer, all in the pursuit of brain-damaged Global Warming policy.

Another day ending in "Y," in other words.

posted by Open Blogger at 11:00 AM

| Access Comments