Next-gen Refrigerants Power the Economy and Protect Environment

The global economy is often compared to an engine: With adequate fuel, it revs and roars; without it, it spits and sputters.

Energy is essential, of course. Banking and capital also are critical. And then there are workers, on whose shoulders economic output quite literally rests. If you were to inspect the pipeline that fuels the modern economy, you might be surprised by what you find. Along with oil, gas, money and people, you’d almost certainly find refrigerant.

Society as we know it, would melt away, according to The Refrigeration School, an HVACR vocational school that describes a hypothetical “refrigeration apocalypse” wherein refrigeration and air-conditioning suddenly disappear:

• Within just two hours, perishable food in every home, grocery store and warehouse would spoil.
• Within 24 hours, massive data centres owned by the likes of Amazon, Facebook and Google would get too warm for the servers inside them, causing massive internet outages.
• Because hospitals and drug makers rely on air-conditioning to reduce infections and on refrigeration to manufacture and store life-saving medications — including COVID-19 vaccines, for example — sickness and mortality rates would begin rising within a month.
• Because oil refineries rely on refrigeration to maximise their output, gas prices would quickly climb.
• Suddenly, it would be impossible to make computers and smartphones, which run on microchips made in air-conditioned “clean rooms.”
• In short order, cities in hot climates would no longer be safe or pleasant to live in, leading to mass northerly migrations.

Without refrigeration, we’d be living in the Dark Ages. What makes refrigerant so valuable, however, isn’t just what it prevents: the spoiled foods supply chain or the industrial and office worker from being sweaty and tired; it literally creates commerce, community and absolute increase in the quality of life. While refrigerants are terrific for the economy, finding the right solution is a significant scientific challenge.

Before the invention of modern refrigeration technology, solutions used for refrigeration included industrial gases like ammonia, sulfur dioxide, and methyl chloride, which can be corrosive, poisonous and even explosive. The industry later developed chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), which are safer for humans but harmful to the Earth, whose protective ozone layer CFCs degrade. In the 1990s, CFCs therefore gave way to hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), which aren’t as destructive to the ozone layer, but which nevertheless contribute to global warming due to greenhouse gas emissions that take years and sometimes even decades to dissipate.

For more info, visit: Honeywell.com