Greenfreeze Could Spell the Deep Freeze for Global Warming Refrigerators

June 23rd, 2009 by Tina Casey

$Greenpeace\'s Greenfreeze HC technology could put old HCFC refrigerators like these out to pasture.$ Hydrocarbon (HC) refrigerants are a “natural” cooler widely used in domestic and commercial refrigerators all over the world, except in the U.S. and Canada. HC refrigerants produce less greenhouse gasses than hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) technology, but they aren’t approved for the U.S. market – yet. Now Greenfreeze, the Greenpeace-developed HC refrigerant, is poised to enter the U.S. thanks to a boost from an unlikely pair of companies, Ben & Jerry and General Electric. It’s not a moment too soon: a new study has fingered HFC refrigerants and other so-called F-gasses as a rapidly growing source of emissions responsible for global warming.

Oh, SNAP – What’s Holding Up Greenfreeze?

SNAP is the U.S. EPA’s Significant New Alternatives Policy Program, which regulates substitutes for CFC’s (chlorofluorocarbons) and other ozone-depleting substances that were phased out under the Clean Air Act. So far, Greenfreeze and other HC-based refrigerants have not made the grade. A big part of the problem is the high risk of flammability in two HC substitutes, isobutane (think cigarette lighters) and propane (think barbecue grills).

Ben & Jerry Give Greenfreeze a Try

Last fall, green-hearted Ben & Jerry successfully petitioned the EPA to allow a test run of Greenfreeze regrigerators at stores in Washington, DC and Boston. There are also several in Vermont (you can find them through the Greenfreeze locator).

General Electric Gets into the HC Act

Around the same time, General Electric announced that it had applied to the U.S. EPA for approval of isobutane as the refrigerant for its new Monogram brand refrigerators. GE expects to roll Monogram out in the U.S. in 2010, so let’s hope that its optimism is rewarded with a thumbs-up from the EPA. Given the “Kafkaesque” SNAP process, that could take a while.

Why Shift from HFC’s to HC’s?

When CFC’s were being phased out, HFC’s were the first-generation answer to the problem of ozone depletion. However, Greenpeace points out that HFC’s are a substantial and growing problem in terms of greenhouse gas emissions, as described by a new study of HFC’s published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The rapid adoption of HFC refrigerators in Asian markets is partly responsible for the uptick; so is the reluctance of the U.S. and Canada to shift away from HFC technology.

The Final Nail in the Coffin for HFC’s

GE is just one global company putting its toe in the HC waters. Refrigerants Naturally is a corporate initiative to reduce the use of HFC’s and other “F-gasses,” supported by such luminaries as IKEA, Pepsico, McDonald’s, Unilever, Carlsberg, and Coca-Cola as well as Greenpeace and the United Nations Environmental Programme. With Pepsico and Coca-Cola on the same page, it seems like the final curtain is ready to close on HFC’s.

h/t to Matthew Traum.

Image: edcrowle on flickr.com.

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Tags: general electric, Global Weirding, greenfreeze, hydrocarbon, hydrofluorocarbon, refrigerant

About the Author

Tina Casey Tina Casey specializes in military and corporate sustainability, advanced technology, emerging materials, biofuels, and water and wastewater issues. Tina’s articles are reposted frequently on Reuters, Scientific American, and many other sites. Views expressed are her own. Follow her on Twitter @TinaMCasey and Google+.

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I am using HC refrigerant since 1997 in Aircond chiller up to 100TR each comp., MAC,and refrig with -30’C.

It.’s, so, excellent refrigerant save and safe.
No other refrigerant will change HC refrigerant for ever.’
Brad Arnold

Frankly, while HFCs are a long term threat, they are virtually irrelevant to the current catastrophic warming trajectory:

“We underestimated the risks … we underestimated the damage associated with temperature increases … and we underestimated the probabilities of temperature increases.” — Sir Nicholas Stern, author of “The Stern Report,” April 17, 2008

“Few seem to realise that the present IPCC models predict almost unanimously that by 2040 the average summer in Europe will be as hot as the summer of 2003 when over 30,000 died from heat. By then we may cool ourselves with air conditioning and learn to live in a climate no worse than that of Baghdad now. But without extensive irrigation the plants will die and both farming and natural ecosystems will be replaced by scrub and desert. What will there be to eat? The same dire changes will affect the rest of the world and I can envisage Americans migrating into Canada and the Chinese into Siberia but there may be little food for any of them.” –Dr James Lovelock’s lecture to the Royal Society, 29 Oct. ’07
Brad Arnold

Frankly, while HFCs are a long term threat, they are virtually irrelevant to the current catastrophic warming trajectory:

“We underestimated the risks … we underestimated the damage associated with temperature increases … and we underestimated the probabilities of temperature increases.” — Sir Nicholas Stern, author of “The Stern Report,” April 17, 2008

“Few seem to realise that the present IPCC models predict almost unanimously that by 2040 the average summer in Europe will be as hot as the summer of 2003 when over 30,000 died from heat. By then we may cool ourselves with air conditioning and learn to live in a climate no worse than that of Baghdad now. But without extensive irrigation the plants will die and both farming and natural ecosystems will be replaced by scrub and desert. What will there be to eat? The same dire changes will affect the rest of the world and I can envisage Americans migrating into Canada and the Chinese into Siberia but there may be little food for any of them.” –Dr James Lovelock’s lecture to the Royal Society, 29 Oct. ’07

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Greenfreeze Could Spell the Deep Freeze for Global Warming Refrigerators