INCORPORATING COLD CHAIN
ASSOCIATIONS NEWS have to be efficient and flexible, taking power when it is available, using solar panels during the day and coasting on minimum load through the night. If fluorinated refrigerants are no longer available then most applications will be served by ammonia, carbon dioxide or hydrocarbons. The increase in urban populations will provide huge opportunities in all sectors of the HVAC & R industry but there is an urgent need for significant improvement in safety, reliability, efficiency and effectiveness of our current systems. The real key to this improvement lies in education and training.
Even if this forecast of the future of fluorinated refrigerants turns out to be too pessimistic and the world finds ways to be content with the levels of fluorine being introduced to the global environment, it makes sense in the wider context of energy use to make our refrigeration systems as safe, reliable, efficient and effective as possible. Improving the cold chain as a means of reducing the staggering levels of post-harvest losses in Africa is a key element in the effort to feed the growing urban population and again the key to improvement is in education and training.
7. CONCLUSIONS
The refrigeration world has dealt with a relentless process of change over the last 30 years, and that process is by no means close to ending. We can take great pride in the achievements delivered over these three decades, including significant changes to almost every aspect of our work. This includes the legal and political frameworks that we work within, such as the ways in which energy is bought and sold and the rules that govern employment, health and safety and the use of various chemicals.
However, the progress achieved by the wider world in response to climate change has been patchy at best and seems likely to fail to hold global average temperature rise to less than 1.5 ° C, the target set at COP21 in Paris in 2015. More recently there has been recognition that the progress towards all the UN Sustainable Development Goals has also fallen short of expectations( United Nations, 2023). If we are to have any chance of reaching an acceptable solution by 2045, recognising the huge challenges that still lie ahead of us, we must start behaving more like entrepreneurs and innovators, stepping up to the challenge and welcoming the changes that it will bring rather than hanging back and hoping that someone else will solve the problem for us.
One way to do this is for industrialists to move away from the attitude that
compliance with energy, safety and environmental legislation is a maximum requirement. If the legislation is viewed as a minimum standard and the business strategy is to go far beyond compliance then the business will always be ahead of the regulator, as is the case with high SEER air-conditioners, and it will not be adversely affected by sudden, short-term, unexpected or illogical changes in the rules. It is likely that the development steps needed to get us from now to 2045 will continue to become more difficult with even less margin for error.
Transition from lower flammability to higher flammability refrigerants is a case in point. This means that we must ensure that people are adequately trained and equipped for the work we will require them to do. We cannot continue to tolerate the inefficient, unsafe, unreliable systems that our previous approach has produced. We need to get better.
CLA
8. REFERENCES
1. AR6,( 2023) Sixth Assessment Report, International Panel on Climate Change, World Meteorological Organization and United Nations Environment Programme
2. Carlowicz, M.,( 2009) The World We Avoided by Protecting the Ozone Layer, NASA Earth Observatory, downloaded 11 July 2024 from https:// www. earthobservatory. nasa. gov / features / WorldWithoutOzone
3. DFFE,( 2024) South Africa’ s 2021 Grid Emission Factors Report, Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment Gazette Number 50071
4. Fyson, C., Grant, N., Das, N., Maxwell, V., Reynolds, C., Rogelj, J., Schleußner, C., Waterton, O.,( 2023), When will global emissions peak? Climate Analytics downloaded 11 July 2024 from https:// ca1-clm. edcdn. com / assets / When-will-global-greenhousegas-emissions-peak. pdf
5. Salawitch, R., McBride, L., Thompson, C., Fleming, E., McKenzie, R., Rosenlof, K., Doherty, S., Fahey, D.,( 2022), Twenty Questions and Answers about the Ozone Layer 2022 Update, ISBN: 978-9914-733-98-3
6. Solomon, K., Velders, G., Wilson, S., Madronich, S., Longstreth, J., Aucamp, P., Bornman, J.,( 2016), Sources, Fates, Toxicity, and Risks Of Trifluoroacetic Acid and its Salts: Relevance to Substances Regulated Under the Montreal and Kyoto Protocols
7. UNEP RTOC( 2022), Refrigeration, Air Conditioning and Heat Pumps Technical Options Committee 2022 Assessment Report, ISBN: 978-9914- 733-93-8
8. United Nations( 2023), The
Sustainable Development Goals Report, Special Edition, ISBN 978-92- 1-101460-)
COLD LINK AFRICA • May 2025 www. coldlinkafrica. co. za
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