R134a Banned? Ready for CO2?

[billybek]

From the January issue of Panorama.
"Europe works to finalize their ban on R134a as of 2011 for newly-designed vehicles and 2017 for all vehicles sold in Europe.
"Initially R134a was thought to be an optimal alternate to Freon R-12 in terms of ozone depletion effects, but R134a turned out to cause 1430 times more global warming than CO2."
The piece from "Street Talk" goes on to describe how new CO2 refrigerant air conditioners are not very efficient in warm weather.
Sounds great doesn't it???
Lets burn more fuel while trying to make our cars cooler inside!
Any thoughts?

[legion]

I think it's a conspiracy to ensure that Porsches never have good AC...

[Jims5543]

Off to buy as many cans of R134a as I can find.

[Racerbvd]

I guess Duponts R134a patent runs out then

[MRM]

One of the biggest scams going on is that Freon is still legal in many countries, including Mexico. It is completely untraceable, and pre-ban freon is still legal in the US, just rare and expensive. I've heard that gangs buy freon in Mexico, drive it by the tanker truck into the US and sell it here.

[peppy]

Originally Posted by Racerbvd

I guess Duponts R134a patent runs out then

+1

[billybek]

Refrigerants and replacements have been driven more from a marketing standpoint than an environmental one.

[Racerbvd]

Originally Posted by MRM

One of the biggest scams going on is that Freon is still legal in many countries, including Mexico. It is completely untraceable, and pre-ban freon is still legal in the US, just rare and expensive. I've heard that gangs buy freon in Mexico, drive it by the tanker truck into the US and sell it here.

I have a 30lb cylinder

[MRM]

Does it ever go empty?

[svandamme]

there's a dutch research team, that is develloping an cooling system for cars , that runs of waste heat from the engine...

http://www.ecn.nl/en/eei/r-d-programme/industrial-heat-technology/cold-from-waste-heat/sorption-cooling/

[Joeaksa]

Originally Posted by MRM

One of the biggest scams going on is that Freon is still legal in many countries, including Mexico. It is completely untraceable, and pre-ban freon is still legal in the US, just rare and expensive. I've heard that gangs buy freon in Mexico, drive it by the tanker truck into the US and sell it here.

The cans of freon in Mexico are different. They have a screw on fitting on top that is totally different than the American versions. Supposedly to keep it from coming North of the border.

It cost me $2 bux for the adapter years ago in TJ town.

[fast924S]

**** the inviorment By the time its a problem, We will be dead, Plus the earth goes threw a natural warming and cooling, it has nothing to do ith us

[svandamme]

Originally Posted by fast924S

**** the inviorment By the time its a problem, We will be dead

so you don't have any kids then?

i don't, and i don't want any
so yeah, eff the enviroment

then again, i have a kid sister, 24 years younger then me, now 8...about the age where it could have been my kid, in fact, when we are out... hot women come to me to talk about how cute my little girl is and what not...mad skills when me and my sis are out and about...

so i guess i'm a bit in conflict over the eff the enviroment thing... especially if, with a little luck, i still have 50 years to go in it...

so i ask you, how old are you, what's your status on kids, now, and possibly in the future? how much time is there before you or your genetic lineage does have acute problems with the enviroment?

mind you, the enviroment will outlast all of us, when our species is gone, the enviroment, nature, will still be around, it 'll just be an enviroment that says eff you humans... i guess it could be a case of what goes around comes around, no?

[red-beard]

Originally Posted by svandamme

there's a dutch research team, that is develloping an cooling system for cars , that runs of waste heat from the engine...

http://www.ecn.nl/en/eei/r-d-programme/industrial-heat-technology/cold-from-waste-heat/sorption-cooling/

Adsorption cooling has been around a long time. The problem is that it's COP (coeffcient of performance) is always under 1, when cooling. It takes more energy to drive the system, then the heat you transfer. This is fine if it is waste heat, or otherwise unused heat. But these systems tend to be quite heavy, if you want to cool any significant quantities of anything.

I did some papers on this in College, using Natural Gas engines to run A/C systems, then running the waste heat through the adsorption system. The A/C system had a COP of 5-6. Adding the claptrap only added about 10-15% cooling capacity and a lot of complexity. It might have paid for itself in an industrial application.

[onewhippedpuppy]

Originally Posted by peppy

+1

Don't worry, if DuPont is pushing for a ban, they'll come up with a new, more expensive, and slightly different variant to sell us.

[billybek]

There are only so many "pure" fluids available for service as a refrigerant. There are lots of blends that are essentially just more of the same insofar as they are mostly HFCs.
Would a ban on one ban all HFC based refrigerants?
It is interesting to consider the Montreal Protocol that bans on a schedule CFCs (current) and HCFCs (more environmentally friendly R-22 and R123). That protocol was really a knee jerk reaction to the ozone depletion problem. The protocol endorsed HFCs but their effect as a global warmer was not considered at that time. Also R134a has a lower theoretical efficiency than, say R123. Very important especially in large tonnage applications. So now North America is stuck with a refrigerant that may be phased out as well after thousands of machines were just recently purchased to replace older refrigerant machines...