It is one of the biggest ironies of the world that substances that are indispensable and used for cooling — ie refrigerants — do the exact opposite, when not handled carefully. These substances are greenhouses gases and warm the globe. And in this, we have a problem.
A flashback
Last week, another September 16 of yet another year went by. The mind goes back thirty years, when all major nations of the world congregated in the Canadian city of Montreal, to sign the famous Montreal Protocol, which was perhaps the first environment-related, pan-globe agreement.
The problem back then was different — global warming had not been established and was far from touching people’s consciousness. What was an issue back then was a phenomenon called ‘ozone depletion’.
Some of the gases that escaped from the world and tented the Earth were destroying the ‘ozone layer’ — a blanket of ozone that does the splendid function of shutting out the cancer-causing ultra-violet rays of the Sun (ozone, in case you didn’t know, is a different type of oxygen molecule. Oxygen atoms naturally live in couples of atoms, which is why it is called O2. In ozone, the gas exists in atoms of three).
Now, these harmful gases were destroying the ozone layer, and when mankind became aware of the problem, the hole in the ozone blanket had grown as big as Africa and continued to grow. Scientists determined that the biggest cause of this was a group of gases, called chlorofluorocarbons or CFCs. These were used as refrigerants.
When countries unite
In 1987 in Montreal, all countries decided to phase-out CFCs and bring in other refrigerants instead. Now, the nub of the issue was that the CFCs were cheaper than the alternatives, which is why they were being used in the first place. Who would pay for the higher costs of the alternative? A method was devised through which rich countries would pool-in resources and provide funds to non-rich countries for the transition.
And it worked beautifully. The Montreal Protocol, which has been ratified by 197 countries in the world, is one of the most successful, well-implemented international protocols, and very soon, the ozone hole began to close. When the attacks from below stopped, the layer started to repair itself. It is still in the process of fixing itself, but that is okay. Let it take its time. The damage has been arrested, reversed.
According to the Government of India, the Montreal Protocol not only led to the phasing-out of around 98 per cent of ozone depleting chemicals, but also averted 135 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions. Nearly 2 million cases of skin cancer per year have been averted globally.
And now...
In this world, nothing comes without a flip-side. As the world began to use hydro-chlorofluoro carbons or HCFCs, instead of CFCs, the realisation grew that these had high global warming potential. While HCFCs didn’t harm the ozone layer, they were greenhouse gases — they trapped the heat reflected back from the earth and made the planet warmer.
In solving one problem, we picked another! And then, everybody scratched their heads and came up with HFCs (hydrofluorocarbons) instead of HCFCs, but turns out, HFCs were only less villainous than HCFCs, but were nevertheless harmful.
Last October, in a city called Kigali, the capital of African country of Rwanda, all countries came up with what is known as the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol, which sets timetables for groups of countries to phase-down (not phase-out) HFCs .
Is there a solution?
So then how do we cool our rooms and cars and offices and cinema halls and store ice-creams and stuff? How do we transport milk, fruits and vegetables over long distances? In other words, what should be our refrigerants?
Because we do need refrigerants for sure. These are chemicals — gases — that can be compressed, taken to the appliances, and suddenly de-compressed. As they expand, they absorb heat from a place that needs to be cooled (Well, you can do cooling without refrigerants, for example, by using ice, or what are called ‘phase changing materials’. But these methods are far, far less efficient than refrigerants and cannot always be used).
The answer to that, experts say, is to go back to the origins of refrigeration. Back then, they used ‘natural refrigerants’ such as ammonia and propane. But they switched to others (like CFCs) because the natural refrigerants have safety issues — they catch fire. How would you like your car to have highly inflammable iso-butane in its tubes that run next to the engine? Well, some actually do and accidents have happened.
The right chemical
Today, the world of refrigeration is grappling with the problem of using natural refrigerants in a manner that is absolutely safe. The Kigali Amendment gives countries a lot of time — for instance, India is to phase-down HFCs to 15 per cent of what it used last year, only in 2047. But it’s not like you can do it all from January 1, 2047 — the Amendment prescribes yearly targets.
There is, in face, a sense of urgency in the refrigeration industry. It accounts for only about 2 per cent of the global warming, but countries seem serious enough about tackling the issue. There is a major shift towards natural refrigerants, and other gases that have low GWP, or global warming potential, called hydrofluoro-olefins (HFO). The shift should bring in chemicals that are not ozone-depleting, don’t contribute to global warming, are safe and economically viable. At present, there isn’t any that satisfies all the four requirementa.
This shift calls for a major overhaul of how the products are engineered, which in turn has implications on the entire supply chain (Just as we are seeing in automobiles. When electric vehicles take over — as they inevitably will — what will companies that make, say, cylinder blocks, cylinder heads, valves or pistons do?)
Playing geopolitics
In the meantime, geopolitics is coming into play. You have Honeywell developing a ‘safe’ and green refrigerant (‘yf’), which the Japanese companies won’t use. The Japanese have brought in the R-32, which is low GWP but is costly. R-32 is what you have, for instance, in your Daikin air-conditioners. Some NGOs will come as fronts for their countries’ companies and fight the competition on environmental grounds.
Students will do well to keep in touch with the refrigeration industry, and be aware of the tectonic changes taking place. There will be several entrepreneurial opportunities waiting to be discovered.