At a high-level workshop organised by Chinese authorities and UNEP in Shanghai, Chinese Mobile Air Conditioning (MAC) experts got a clear picture on the state of play for CO2 and other alternative refrigerants. The efficiency of various options, flammability and safety concerns were widely discussed.
As this site is clearly devoted to the promotion of R744, I will understand if this comment does not get published, however perhaps it will, so I will take the time comment.
It is important to for anyone wishing to understand the landscape of the MAC sector to realise:
(a) that most 'information' presented at conferences such as these is around 30% factual and 30% interpretation, and 40% spin.
(b) there is a high barrier to entry for any technology that does not have a certain level of support from certain 'key' players on the refrigerant supply side - a barrier which centers on industry politics and personal bias, and
(c) After attending many of these kinds of conferences myself, it is clear that ultimately these meetings are concerned more with building consensus as opposed to critically assessing, measuring and selecting the alternative with the best balance of properties after a balanced scientific assessment. The benefit of the consensus approach, for the big players at least, is that consensus can be swayed much more easily than an open scientific assessment.
This situation is highlighted with sparkling clarity when one contemplates how on earth HFO-1234yf ever succeeded in getting even this far down the road. Even the most basic arms-length assessment of the properties of 1234yf screams at anyone with an IQ above 50 that it is completely inferior to any current alternative and carries boat-loads of unnecessary risk. How did it get this far, then? Quite simply, because this is the last hope of the fluorocarbon industry to stay in the MAC game, and their sheer size and financial lobbying might has allowed then to muscle seats at the tables of conferences such as these, and hold onto their seats long after the science indicates they should leave.
Comparing 1234yf with a hydrocarbon (HC) refrigerant reveals that:
(a) 1234yf is less efficient as a refrigerant than an HC, or at best no better
(b) 1234yf is flammable, as are HC's. The difference in flammability criteria of 1234yf offers no significant flammability risk reduction according to any balanced risk assessment
(c) 1234yf is highly toxic when combusted, and data seems to indicate that toxicity risks exist even for direct exposure. HC's have none of these toxicity issues.
(d) HC's are a fraction of the cost of 1234yf. If HC's were incorporated in MAC's, economies of scale would make HC's much cheaper even than R134a
Again, I ask the reader to reflect on why 1234yf ever made it out of the lab? It clearly wasn't because of the science!
But to remind the reader that this issue is about much more than cold hard facts, the reader should turn his attention to CO2 for at least a moment. Perhaps the decision by the CO2 lobby to employ some of the same lobbying and spin tactics used by the fluorocarbon industry to promote R744 was adopted as a 'necessary evil' - perhaps they could be forgiven for that... after all, it is a large fluorocarbon beast they are pitted against and fair play might mean death.
Take, for example, recent reports of R744 cabin safety tests, some of which have been reported on this site. In a properly constructed MAC system, a hydrocarbon (HC) refrigerant would pass these very same tests. But presently, HC refrigerant alternatives are considered a non-option by Stuttgart and Detroit, for reasons based mostly on emotion and not on fact.
The fluorocarbon lobby has done such a good job of inciting a completely irrational paranoia about the flammability of HC refrigerants that senior management in Stuttgart and Detroit will likely need to die off before any rational assessment of the real world risks will ever get allocated time in their meeting schedules. In a final piece of poetic justice, HFO-1234yf looks likely to lose against CO2, at least in part to the very paranoia about flammability that they worked so hard and spent so many millions creating.
The natural hydrocarbon refrigerant industry does not have the huge coffers and entrenched monopoly position to 'muscle' seats at the conference table. The only thing it has is the facts:
(a) that it is ideally suited to MAC applications because it is cheap and performs extremely well, particularly in hot climates, and
(b) That there is already 20+ million car user years of safe use in vehicles all over the world as an aftermarket product in existing systems originally designed for R-12 and R-134a
We hope that this will speak volumes to new ears in the auto industry - ears that are not calloused by fluoro-lobby spin - ears that are sensitive to the financial and performance benefits the HC alternative clearly offers.
As I am employed in the hydrocarbon refrigerant industry, some may suggest these comments are 'spin' also, but an assessment of the facts and the history of the MAC industry will reveal the truth or error in these comments.
In the real world the use of hydrocarbon refrigerant in automotive application has increased significantly. This has quietly taken place over the last few decades in America, Australia and Asia, and it has been achieved without the expected problems assumed with flammable refrigerant. Yet there is still now serious discussion about the real world use of hydrocarbon refrigerant in automotive applications. Why?
Whilst the debate about CO2 and HFC-1234yf is a very interesting and important one, the search for replacement MAC refrigerants for R134a should not be portrayed as a two horse race.
Hydrocarbon refrigerants (usually a blend of isobutane and propane) were established as a viable solution in the mid 90's, and have been in widespread, if poorly reported, use since then in the USA and Australia, and also Indonesia, Japan, the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand and several countries in the Middle East and South America. There are several refrigerant manufacturers around the world competing to supply these markets.
Safe use of HCs in existing MAC systems has been well established by the absence of reported fires or accidents, but in spite of the vast environmental gains to be made by rolling out HCs even if only in existing systems, this situation has not been well documented in the literature. In spite of the absence of evidence that the flammable properties of HC refrigerants pose any risk in MAC systems, the assertion has been made so often it appears to become accepted as truth, and more than ever this now needs to be exposed to critical scrutiny.
There is a great need for an independent examination of the viability and extent of use of HCs in MAC systems, all that is required is for an organisation with sufficient courage and resources to decide to make this a priority.
Up until now Europe has lacked a champion for the use of HCs in MACS, but surely with all the science is telling us about the need for significant urgent reductions in emissions, the time has come for such an advocate to emerge to enable the potential benefits available from replacing R134a with HCs to be gained.
For all the benefits that CO2 may offer in new systems, it cannot address the pressing need to replace environmentally dangerous gases in the service market. It should alarm every reader to learn that very cheap Chinese-made CFC-12 is still being used to service MACS in many places in Asia, and it would be enormously beneficial for an international effort to be mounted to start giving HCs away to stop this practice.
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