Johnson Controls (JCI) HVACR Trends - GineersNow Engineering Magazine Key Trends Making Our Cities Greener & Smarter | Page 66

HFC Refrigerants To Be Phased Out:
What It Means For HVAC/R Contractors
And Technicians
Whether you believe in global climate warming
or not, there is a growing movement among
government officials and leading scientists
worldwide in finding alternatives to certain
chemicals that are currently used as refrigerants
in commercial, residential and automotive air
conditioning units and refrigeration units. These
chemicals have been studied extensively and some
governments are pushing for alternatives, which
will affect how technicians install and maintain
HVAC/R equipment in the years ahead.
At issue are hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), which
are used in many AC and refrigeration units today.
HFCs were created to replace chlorofluorocarbons
(CFCs), which were found to be eating a hole in the
Earth’s ozone layer.
But what scientists have learned over the years is
that HFCs are just as harmful to the environment
– but in a different way. HFCs produce gases
(halocarbons) that contribute to global warming.
Halocarbons, combined with the release of
methane landfills and livestock, nitrous oxide from
agriculture, and carbon dioxide from automobiles,
trucks and buildings, represent the spectrum of
gases that scientists believe are contributing to the
greenhouse effect (source: “The Biggest Climate
Change Story in the World this week is Quietly
Playing Out in Rwanda, The Vox, Oct. 12, 2016).
Scientists are worried that greenhouse gases
will lead to global warming, which they believe is
responsible for rising sea levels, super storms, and
changing environmental conditions that is affecting
plant and wild life.
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HVACR Leaders • May 2017
In 1989, governments throughout the world signed
onto the Montreal Protocol to phase out CFCs.
As a result, industry turned to HFCs because
they were deemed to be relatively harmless to the
ozone layer. However, it turns out that HFCs are
very efficient at trapping heat. With an increasing
number of air conditioners entering the market
worldwide, scientists are worried about the effect
of HFCs in accelerating global warming.
Let’s put that into perspective: As countries
such as India, China, and Vietnam become more
prosperous, they will want to buy and install more
and more air conditioning units. The summer
heat in countries like India and Vietnam can be
sweltering. So imagine, in just India alone, 700
million residential and commercial AC units coming
online within the next several years – and with
those units, millions of pounds of HFC emissions
entering the environment.
The Holy Grail, so to spea