Despite the huge costs the HVACR industry has incurred over the last few decades in response to the growing environmental threats industry is optimistic about the business opportunities presented by the threat of global warming.

Last week CDP (formerly the Carbon Disclosure Project) released the results of the worldwide survey on the question of carbon taxes as a response to global warming. Among the wide range of questions asked the following one received the most responses.

More than 600 companies around the world view global warming as an opportunity and are setting their business goals and strategies to respond to this opportunity. As the report summarized "Companies are Leading the Way to Climate Readiness....Companies reporting to CDP are showing clearly that major corporations not only recognize climate-related regulatory risks and opportunities, but are proactively planning for them and are outpacing their governments in thinking ahead."

This was underscored at a White House meeting last week by AHRI President Stephen Yurek stating...

"Close to $2 billion has been spent by the industry since 2009 researching energy-efficient equipment and the utilisation of low-GWP refrigerants," Yurek stated, "and over the next 10 years, the HVACR industry will invest an additional $5 billion for R&D and capital expenditures to develop and commercialize low-GWP technologies."

What's Different Now?

In the past, major OEMs lead the way in deciding which refrigerants were chosen for industry use, preferring to limit the number of different refrigerants to achieve low refrigerant costs with the high volumes and minimizing confusion in the service industry.

This strategy carried through the ozone depletion era with R-12 being largely replaced by R-134a, R-11 replaced by R-123 and R-22 largely replaced by R-410A in global HVACR markets and applications.

Because the "discovery" and "proof" of global warming has been a slowly evolving topic industry has had more time to evaluate the characteristics and trade-offs between refrigerant alternatives. New refrigerants such as HFOs have been developed. New and modified cycles have been developed and are being tested. Mixtures have become more common opening the door to an endless range of new refrigerant possibilities. New technologies in heat transfer surfaces, compressors and controls are being introduced to take advantage of newfound flexibilities in refrigerants. The industry has recognized the value of customized refrigerants and is far more willing to pay more for refrigerants and use less of it to get improved performance.

Opportunities

The opportunities now are abundant, and they are available to a far broader range of companies including many small and medium-size companies. Chemical manufacturers are introducing a plethora of new medium and low GWP refrigerants to help solve the global warming problem. It appears our industry will end up with a higher number of new refrigerant (molecules) as well as the endless possibilities of mixing together a number of these individual components. The end result may not be "dial-a-refrigerant" for each job but unless you are thinking of such possibilities you will miss the opportunity of a lifetime.

Editor's Note: CR4 would like to thank Larry Butz, President, GEA Consulting Associate, for contributing this blog entry.