ACtion Magazine - March 2013 - (Page 14)

Leonard’s Law Industry in transition Keith N. Leonard Esquire he phrase ‘baby, it’s cold outside’ certainly applies to the current weather here in Philadelphia. However, in just a few short months, most drivers in this part of the country will be calling for it to be cold inside (of their homes and cars) instead. According to the Division of Technology, Industry and Economics of the United Nations Environment Programme, there were some 720 million automobiles worldwide as of 2000, and half of those vehicles were equipped with air conditioning. Presently, almost every car produced in the world has air conditioning as standard equipment. Just in the United States, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reports that motor vehicle air conditioners cause the consumption of over 7 billion gallons of gasoline every year, with emissions of over 58 million metric tons of carbon dioxide. Leakage of refrigerant in vehicles causes another 50 million metric tons of carbon dioxide to be emitted to the atmosphere each year. With the signing of the Montreal Protocol in 1987, industries worldwide began to consider what compounds they could come up with to replace the CFCs which were to be phased out over time due to the environmental impact of those refrigerants. T THE NEW SAE STANDARD: R-1234yf WE’RE READY, ARE YOU? Valve cores and housings sold separately. 14 Reader Reply ACTION • March 2013 In 1998, MACS, together with the SAE International and the EPA, formed the Mobile Air Conditioning Climate Protection Partnership to seek ways to reduce the impact of mobile air conditioning on the climate. Alternative refrigerants were offered by companies under the EPA’s SNAP Program as replacements for CFCs, but not all of the refrigerants were ultimately approved for various reasons. Over time though, HFC-134a was adopted and approved by vehicle manufacturers such that it has become the predominant refrigerant found in the air conditioning systems of today’s motor vehicles. However, HFC-134a is also a potent greenhouse gas, with its own global warming effects – if one pound of HFC-134a is released to the atmosphere, it has the same global warming effect as 1,430 pounds of carbon dioxide. In 2006 the European Parliament passed the “MAC F-gas Directive (European Directive 2006/40/EC) requiring the air conditioners in new “type” vehicles which operated in the European Union after 2010 and all vehicles sold in the European Union after December 31, 2017 to use refrigerants having a global-warming potential or GWP of not greater than 100. In the spring of 2011, the EPA accepted a petition by various nonprofit organizations and announced that the agency will initiate a rulemaking to remove HFC-134a from the list of approved refrigerants for use in the air conditioning systems of new passenger cars and light duty vehicles. At that time, the only publicly disclosed refrigerants satisfying the European Directive’s criterion were hydrocarbons, carbon dioxide, and HFC-152A. Accordingly, the hunt for refrigerant alternatives has continued. That search is for some form of refrigerant that has a low GWP. A product’s GWP depends upon the following factors: (a) the absorption of infrared radiation by the given species of refrigerant; (b) the spectral location of the refrigerant’s absorbing wavelengths; and (c) the atmospheric lifetime of the species of refrigerant. The GWP of a gas is the relative measure of the amount of heat trapped by a specified mass of that gas in a product when compared against the amount of heat trapped by a similar mass of carbon dioxide. It is then calculated over a specific time interval; the time period commonly used is 100 years. Carbon dioxide’s GWP has been standardized to 1 for comparison purposes. Thus, if a gas has a 100 year GWP of 75, it means that, if the same mass of that gas and of carbon dioxide were released to the atmosphere, the gas will trap 75 times more heat than the mass of carbon dioxide over that 100 year period. As of now, the leading candidate proposed as the alternative to HFC-134a in automotive air conditioning systems is HFO-1234yf. Its GWP rating is 355 times less than the GWP rating of HFC-134a and its atmospheric lifetime is some 400 times shorter than that of HFC-134a. The latest generation of alternative refrigerants was largely developed in order to meet the foregoing European Directive and in anticipation that http://www.schraderinternational.com http://www.macsw.org/MACS/Publications/ACtion_Reader_Reply/MACS/Publications/ACTION/ACtion_Reader_Reply.aspx?hkey=ac24bddb-c045-442a-813c-cbf05f88ac4d

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of ACtion Magazine - March 2013

ACtion Magazine - March 2013
Contents
Outlook
In Bin
Freeze Frame
Under the Southern Cross
Leonard’s Law
Virtual View
News & Updates
Managing the Heat
Delphi Restores 1954 Pontiac Star Chief With First ‘Front Mounted A/C System’
Replacement Actuator Motor Cautions From HeaterTreater
Association News
In Memorium
Quick Check
New Products & Services
Last Watch

ACtion Magazine - March 2013