The European Union has reached a tentative deal on limiting the use in refrigerators and air-conditioners of fluorinated gases that have a global warming potential thousands of times greater than carbon dioxide.
Two decades after international action led to the phasing out of ozone-depleting chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), the European Commission last year proposed a law to eliminate the climate-harming “F-gases” that replaced CFCs.
Under the deal, the new rules introduce a cap to achieve a 79 per cent reduction by 2030 on the group of gases known as hydroflurocarbons (HFCs).
The rules also include bans on the use of HFCs in new equipment in some business sectors by 2022 and prevent their use for servicing and maintenance of old equipment.
The agreement needs to be endorsed by EU diplomats and then the European Parliament and EU ministers to become law, EU officials said.
F-gases, used as coolants in air-conditioning and in domestic, supermarket and industrial refrigeration, were introduced as a solution easily acceptable to industry because their production chain resembled that for CFCs.
However, their global-warming potential, up to 23,000 times more than carbon dioxide, led the EC to push for natural non-synthetic alternatives such as ammonia or CO2, which can have high cooling properties when used in refrigeration.
Environmental campaigners and Green politicians had tried to get a more sweeping ban but said that the agreement still represented progress.
From the European Parliament, Bas Eickhout, a member of the Green Party, said that negotiations had produced “a classic compromise”.
He added that it is a step towards the greater prize of a global deal and called on China and the United States to follow the EU’s lead.
The refrigeration, air-conditioning and heat pump industry, represented by the European Partnership for Energy and the Environment (EPEE), also welcomed the deal.
“The phase-down will steer innovation and help industry to move towards alternative solutions in a safe and efficient way,” Andrea Voigt, EPEE director general, said in a statement.
Provided the new rules are endorsed, they should become applicable from 2015.
In contrast to a drop in other emissions, F-gases have risen in the EU by 60 per cent since 1990.
They leak into the atmosphere from production plants and during the operation and disposal of products and equipment that
2 Responses
The advice should also recognise that HFCs are not energy efficient refrigerants. The alternatives that will be used to replace HFCs are far more energy efficient. They are generically refried to as natural refrigerants: hydrocarbons, carbon dioxide and ammonia.
The implications of this agreement are that most HVAC&R equipment will have to be replaced in the next ten years because the refrigerants they require are no longer available. The result will be a major improvement in both indirect and direct emissions, major cost savings for just about everybody.
What will this cost industry, and is it based on Science?
It appears the “Green Activists” in the EU are attempting to extend the legislation to prevent owners from even maintaining their relatively new equipment. Does this mean throwing away air conditioners more than 3 years old, simply because it will become illegal to use in the near future what is at present a legal refrigerant gas.
This has many aspects to it, and barely twenty years after the Montreal Protocol banned our efficient, effective and safe mainstream refrigerants, its going to happen again.
That is IF the EU measure goes into Law in the EU. Of course they are pressuring other countries to follow suit.
Remember, Mercedes Benz are fighting the EU over refrigerant regulations, I wouldn’t like them as an enemy !!