Managing Products with Refrigerants (HFCs)
What is cool and causes warming?
This may sound like a children’s joke or riddle aside, the answer itself is dry: hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), a man-made compound used primarily as a refrigerant.
Created to replace chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), HFCs help keep food fresh in the refrigerator and indoor spaces temperate through air conditioning. However, HFCs account for a small but significant share of global greenhouse gases emissions. Anthropogenic emissions of fluorinated gases rose to around 2.3% of total greenhouse gas emissions in 2019 from around 1% in 1990, according to the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)’s Sixth Assessment Report, published in 2021.
Slow Leaking of HFCs
In a recent podcast on Resources Radio, Lisa Rennels, a PhD candidate at the University of California, Berkeley, and an Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education Fellow with the National Center for Environmental Economics at the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), explained why HFCs are such a potent contributor to global warming.
“While they're in the atmosphere, they have a much larger impact on temperature than a gas like carbon dioxide,” she said. “We see this when we compare what we call ‘temperature impulse responses,’ which is the response of the global temperature to a pulse of a greenhouse gas emission.”
“While they're in the atmosphere, [HFCs] have a much larger impact on temperature than a gas like carbon dioxide.”
She added: “While carbon dioxide is emitted from activities like fossil fuel combustion that happens all at once, HFCs are integral components to technologies like air conditioners, and they tend to leak out slowly over time at a much lower rate. These different factors are relevant when we try to project their emissions and the impacts on climate change.”
Rising Air Conditioning and Energy Demand
More than 90% of the 780,000 tons of high-GWP HFCs manufactured annually are used for making necessities of life—refrigeration and air conditioning, Dr. Ashley Woodcock, professor of respiratory medicine at University of Manchester in the UK, wrote in a 2023 article in the New England Journal of Medicine.
As the world continues to get warmer—2023 was the warmest year on record, according to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration—life in urban and other communities would become increasingly difficult without indoor cooling.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimated that two out of three households in the world will have an air conditioning unit by 2050, doubling the amount from today and increasing the demand for greenhouse gases if unabated on the same path.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimated that two out of three households in the world will have an air conditioning unit by 2050, doubling the amount from today and increasing the demand for greenhouse gases if unabated on the same path.
Meanwhile, the IEA also projected that space cooling in the buildings sector will account for 16% of global electricity consumption and just under 30% of total electricity in the buildings sector.
Yet ensuring that cooling needs are met does not necessitate having to solely focus on manufacturing more air conditioning units. New buildings can be constructed in a way that prioritizes passive solutions for keeping temperatures comfortable and building occupants can be educated about setting the air conditioner temperature to a lower power output point. Furthermore, new air-conditioning equipment built in the future will have better energy efficiency than the units being made today, the IEA said in its 2018 report, “The Future of Cooling.”
Smuggling of HFCs
Ironically, HFCs were introduced to help save the ozone layer by replacing hazardous chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) per the Montreal Protocol of 1987. Now HFCs are deemed too hazardous to the environment too, and their use is being gradually reduced by the Kigali Amendment of the Montreal Protocol which will see their use cut by 85% by 2036. The Kigali Amendment was signed in 2016, went into effect on January 1, 2019, and was ratified by 157 countries as of April 10, 2024, including by the United States on September 21, 2022.
Changing heating and cooling systems is neither cheap nor easy. Grocers may face costs of more than $1 million a store to convert to non-HFC cooling, the Food Industry Association has predicted. Moreover, as the Kigali Amendment restrictions come into force, those in need of HFCs are resorting to desperate measures. Earlier this year, Michael Hart of San Diego, California, became the first person to be charged with smuggling HFCs into the United States from Mexico, the US Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of California said in March. The indictment alleges Hart carried the refrigerants across the border into California in his vehicle, hiding them under a tarp and tools.
Now HFCs are deemed too hazardous to the environment too, and their use is being gradually reduced by the Kigali Amendment of the Montreal Protocol which will see their use cut by 85% by 2036.
A few weeks later, Resonac America in San Jose, California, was caught illegally importing approximately 6,208 pounds of these gases into the Port of Los Angeles, according to an article in Scientific American. Resonac America agreed to pay a penalty of over $400,000 and has been ordered to destroy 1,693 pounds of HFCs, said the US Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance. If these chemicals had been released into the atmosphere, this would have been about 41,677 metric tons of CO2e, or the amount of emissions from powering 8,225 homes with electricity for one year, Scientific American said.
Alternative Refrigerants Available
There are a variety of climate-friendly, energy-efficient, safe and proven HFC alternatives already available. These alternatives include natural refrigerants, HFCs such as R32, Hydrofluoroolefins (HFOs), and a blend of HFC and HFO.
Another climate-friendly alternative to HFCs in a number of supermarkets’ large refrigeration systems are CO2 cascade systems. They have at least two refrigeration systems connected in series, with a higher-temperature side and a lower-temperature side. In these cycles, refrigerants with different freezing and boiling points are used, and these systems are more efficient than conventional refrigeration systems.
Natural refrigerants, including hydrocarbons and ammonia, are also considered, given their low GWP and low ozone-depleting properties. However, ammonia is hazardous and corrosive despite its high energy efficiency, and hydrocarbons such as R-600a (isobutane) and R-290 (propane) are highly flammable and unfit for retrofitting. Careful consideration is thus necessary when implementing alternative refrigerants.
Consumers can help reduce HFCs by researching whether the air conditioning in the new car or refrigerator they are considering to buy uses greenhouse gases and if there is an HFC-free alternative. Furthermore, by regularly maintaining the equipment in cars and houses, one can also help reduce leaks of these chemicals as well as ensure their proper end-of-life recycling.
Respiratory Inhalers and HFCs
In addition to refrigerants, HFCs are used as a propellant in the respiratory inhalers that tens of millions of people use to treat their asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
[A]t least 800 million to 825 million inhalers [with HFCs] were made in 2021 alone. Their usage translated into the release of around 10,700 tons of HFC-134a and HFC-227ea into the atmosphere.
While inhalers comprise a small percentage of the world’s HFC use, each asthma inhaler releases HFC—and based on HFC manufacturing industry estimates to the UN Environment Programme’s Ozone Secretariat, at least 800 million to 825 million inhalers were made in 2021 alone. Their usage translated into the release of around 10,700 tons of HFC-134a and HFC-227ea into the atmosphere.
According to Dr. Woodcock, inhalers that use HFCs as propellants generate the same carbon footprint emissions as a small family car traveling 200 miles. In the UK, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) advises patients about how different inhalers have different carbon footprints—including being comparable to long car drives—and suggests the patients consider “dry powder” inhalers.
In Dr. Woodcock’s article in the New England Journal of Medicine, he said that a campaign to promote “greener” inhalers to the public and clinicians in Greater Manchester, England, helped reduce the inhaler carbon footprint by 10%, equivalent to taking 3,400 cars off the road. Moreover, In November 2022, the Greater Manchester Integrated Care Partnership stated that over 300,000 inhalers (with carbon emissions equivalent to 28,000 cars) were prescribed every month, indicating a switch to dry powder inhalers can help reduce carbon footprint to less than 1kg (2.2 lbs) of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) per device. There is also guidance from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence for making a decision based on the type of inhaler, whether the inhaler contains HFCs, and its carbon footprint.
The Montreal Agreement has been successful in reaching its targets to eliminate use of CFCs, and there’s reason to believe that, with the wider public’s assistance, the Kigali Amendment’s phase out of HFCs can also be achieved.
*Gordon Cairns is a freelance journalist and teacher of English and Forest Schools based in Scotland.
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