197 nations including the United States, India, and China have signed an agreement to reduce and eliminate the use of HFCs in the coming decades. The deal includes three tiers with a freeze in production and use beginning in 2019 (developed countries), 2024 (China, Brazil, and others), or 2028 (India, Pakistan, and others):
Nearly 200 nations hammered out a legally binding deal to cut back on greenhouse gases used in refrigerators and air conditioners, a Rwandan minister announced to loud cheers on Saturday, in a major step against climate change.
The deal, which includes the world's two biggest economies, the United States and China, divides countries into three groups with different deadlines to reduce the use of factory-made hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) gases, which can be 10,000 times more powerful than carbon dioxide as greenhouse gases. [...] Under the pact, developed nations, including much of Europe and the United States, commit to reducing their use of the gases incrementally, starting with a 10 percent cut by 2019 and reaching 85 percent by 2036.
[...] The HFC talks build on the 1987 Montreal Protocol, which succeeded in phasing out the use of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), widely used at that time in refrigeration and aerosols. The aim was to stop the depletion of the ozone layer, which shields the planet from ultraviolet rays linked to skin cancer and other conditions.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 16 2016, @11:30AM
I'm Captain Kirk... yes.... Captain...
hahahahAHAHAHAHAHAAHHAHHA
(Score: 4, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday October 16 2016, @11:59AM
So, when CFCs and HCFCs were phased out we went to HFCs. These were notably less efficient as phase change media and lead to increased power usage, which lead to more pollutants being dumped in the atmosphere from power plants/cars/etc... because people will not settle for using the same amount of energy, they want the same temperature. I'm wondering if we're going to do exactly the same thing again this time.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 16 2016, @04:53PM
The lunacy is we are replacing them with ever-more-expensive but less-efficient refrigerants.
And now they are saying the newest refrigerants are toxic and flammable! That is just nuts. Stupid.
If we went back to one of the oldest refrigerants we could dramatically increase efficiency, have zero toxicity, and only mild flammability: Propane. It is an excellent refrigerant and operates at R22-like low head pressures. All the new refrigerants require double or triple the pressure of R22.
Before screeching "But it burns!!!1!", do a little research on the volumes and conditions refrigerants are used in, and their failure modes. Your house or car is not going to explode or even catch on fire if a propane A/C gets a leak. Catastrophic ruptures could be a problem, but then your car is filled with gasoline and oil, and a lot more of each!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 16 2016, @10:21PM
> The lunacy is we are replacing them with ever-more-expensive but less-efficient refrigerants.
The truth is that these new hydrocarbon refrigerants are generally more efficient, especially per unit volume. There is lots of research and commercially available products demonstrating this fact. [cooltechnologies.org] The actual downside is that hydrocarbon refrigerants are more expensive chlorofluorocarbons. They are just more expensive to manufacture. Which is why a major focus of these talks was subsidies for 3rd world nations implementing the rules.
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Monday October 17 2016, @03:57AM
They are just more expensive to manufacture.
That's counterintuitive because large deposits of hydrocarbons exist naturally, which isn't true of halocarbons. Fuel-grade hydrocarbons are cheap commodities; must refrigerants be far purer?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Sunday October 16 2016, @12:02PM
So given the type of refrigerant in my central air at home, assuming all the math isn't fuzzy, it works out to a couple tons of CO2 assuming I vent it to air (accidentally, because that's quite illegal to do intentionally)
One problem is my AC draws 4 KW, or 20 amps at 220 (240 whatever) so thats 4 pounds of coal per hour when its on (since a KWh is about a pound of coal, very roughly)
Yeah yeah a pound of coal results in more than a pound of CO2 because the O2 weighs something, duh, but it doesn't matter, because either way you look at it, the electricity used in a season or two is more "global warming equivalent" than the refrigerant.
Now the point isn't that coal rollin is OK with chemicals as long as you roll more with a power outlet, but that regulatory and financial waste is staggering by fooling with this instead of say installing 4 KW of solar panels or installing another foot of quality insulation or replacing old low insulation windows doors and weather stripping. So what I am saying is this is a stupid waste of money and given $10B or whatever, the earth would be much cooler if the $10B were spent on insulation instead of playing chemistry games.
(Score: 3, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday October 16 2016, @12:25PM
Wouldn't sweat it. They're not talking about ripping out all the old AC units and replacing them. If they do it like they did the phasing out of R12/22, anything existing is grandfathered and the proper refrigerant is going to be produced for it for roughly its expected lifecycle and then some. They just won't produce new things that use the old refrigerant anymore and they'll require you have a license to purchase HFC-based refrigerants, like they did for CFCs and HCFCs.
Here's the part where I'm glad I already have such a license. Going 52C in the army didn't just get me out of digging quite as many fox holes, it got me a lifetime federal license to purchase any kind of refrigerant I want.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 16 2016, @10:07PM
> One problem is my AC draws 4 KW
I know this is hard to believe, but this isn't about you.
This is about India, China and Africa where they currently have very little air conditioning, where the very first appliance that most households buy once they've got the money is an A/C unit. Yes even before they buy a fridge, they buy A/C. A/C radically changed the US, increasing productivity and juicing the economies of entire states that were barely tolerable 6 months out of the the year. The billions of people lifting themselves out of poverty in the 3rd world were on track for an enormous amount of HFC usage. Current american usage is a drop in the bucket compared to what (was) coming up in the next couple of decades.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by t-3 on Monday October 17 2016, @12:18AM
I wondwe how much of this is due to locally-appropriate building technology being replaced by "modern" designs. My family's ancestral home in Texas never needed AC or heat, because it was built with thick adobe walls that regulated the temperature.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 17 2016, @05:59PM
The definition of "need" is relative. Did you sleep outside during the summer nights? That's what people without A/C do in India.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 16 2016, @07:13PM
We might as well surrender to ISIS now. Hillary has single handedly lost the war on terrorism, thanks Obama.