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EPA rule to phase out gases used in refrigerators, coolants

  
Via:  Nerm_L  •  3 years ago  •  11 comments

By:   MATTHEW DALY (AP NEWS)

EPA rule to phase out gases used in refrigerators, coolants
With this proposal, EPA is taking another significant step under President Biden's ambitious agenda to address the climate crisis

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Never before has the Federal government confronted so many crises by doing so little for so long.

The only crisis Joe Biden is addressing is a political crisis.  The political urgency for Joe Biden is to create as many 15 year (or longer) programs as he can as quickly as possible.  Biden is promising to accomplish great things sometime long after he has left office.

We've known for decades that Freon chemicals are greenhouse gases that are major contributors to atmospheric warming.  We've known that CFCs banned by the Montreal Protocol were greenhouse gases.  And we've known that the HFC replacements were greenhouse gases.  But no one wants to acknowledge that because it could tarnish the political luster of an international grip 'n grin event.  The Montreal Protocol has been hailed as a great political accomplishment; politics saved the planet.

In politics, current performance does not guarantee future benefit.  Joe Biden kicking the can may be an extraordinary political achievement but isn't real progress.


S E E D E D   C O N T E N T



WASHINGTON (AP) — In the first Biden administration rule aimed at combating climate change, the Environmental Protection Agency is proposing to phase down production and use of hydrofluorocarbons, highly potent greenhouse gases commonly used in refrigerators and air conditioners.

The proposed rule follows through on a law Congress passed in December authorizing a 15-year phaseout of HFCs. The new rule is intended to decrease U.S. production and use of the gases by 85% over the next 15 years, part of a global phaseout intended to slow climate change.

HFCs are considered a major driver of global warming and are being targeted worldwide. President Joe Biden has pledged to embrace a 2016 global agreement to reduce them.

"With this proposal, EPA is taking another significant step under President Biden's ambitious agenda to address the climate crisis," EPA Administrator Michael Regan said in a statement Monday. "By phasing down HFCs, which can be hundreds to thousands of times more powerful than carbon dioxide at warming the planet, EPA is taking a major action to help keep global temperature rise in check.″

The phasedown of HFCs is widely supported by the business community, Regan said, and "will help promote American leadership in innovation and manufacturing of new climate-safe products. Put simply, this action is good for our planet and our economy."

A huge pandemic relief and spending bill passed by Congress in December, and signed by former President Donald Trump, directs EPA to sharply reduce production and use of HFCs. The measure won wide support in both parties and was hailed as the most significant climate change law in at least a decade.

Besides targeting HFCs, the so-called American Innovation and Manufacturing, or AIM Act also promotes technologies to capture and store carbon dioxide produced by power and manufacturing plants and calls for reductions in diesel emissions by buses and other vehicles.

Delaware Sen. Tom Carper, a Democrat who chairs the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, praised the EPA rule and said the United States was joining the rest of the world in reducing use of HFCs, helping to avoid the worst effects of global warming.

"Passing the AIM Act was a momentous climate achievement that will help save our planet, and today we are one step closer to its benefits being a reality," Carper said in a statement.

Carper and Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., pushed for the HFC proposal, which they said would give U.S. companies the regulatory certainty needed to produce "next-generation" coolants as an alternative to HFCs. Both men represent states that are home to chemical companies that produce the alternative refrigerants.

The HFC provision was supported by an unusual coalition that included major environmental and business groups, including the National Association of Manufacturers, American Chemistry Council and the Air-Conditioning, Heating and Refrigeration Institute, which represents companies that make residential and commercial air conditioners, water heaters and commercial refrigeration equipment.

The industry has long been moving to use of alternative refrigerants and was pushing for a federal standard to avoid a patchwork of state laws and regulations.

EPA's proposal "will sharply reduce a sizable source of greenhouse gas emissions while creating new manufacturing jobs and growing our nation's share of the global market for air-conditioning and refrigeration products,″ American Chemistry Council president Chris Jahn said in a statement. The council represents major companies including Honeywell, Chemours and Arkema.

Those companies and others have developed effective alternatives to HFCs for air conditioning and refrigeration, the group said.

David Doniger, a senior climate and clean-energy official with the Natural Resources Defense Council, said the EPA rule will deliver "enormous public health and climate benefits to all Americans.″

Replacing HFCs with safer, commercially available alternatives "is a critical and totally doable first step to head off the worst of the climate crisis ... that will save industry money in the bargain,″ Doniger said.

EPA estimates the proposed rule would save nearly $284 billion over the next three decades and prevent the equivalent of 187 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions, roughly equal to annual greenhouse gas emissions from one out of every seven vehicles registered in the United States.

Biden issued an executive order in January that embraces the 2016 Kigali Amendment to the 1987 Montreal Protocol on ozone pollution. The amendment calls for the U.S. and other large industrialized countries to reduce HFCs by 85% by 2036. Biden's order directs the State Department to prepare documents for submission of the amendment to the Senate for formal ratification.


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Nerm_L
Professor Expert
1  seeder  Nerm_L    3 years ago

Joe Biden is confronting a political crisis with promises of doing something long after Biden has left office.  Biden may want to be seen as another FDR but he's deluding himself to plan for 16 years in office.  

So far, Joe Biden is all promises and no progress.

 
 
 
Perrie Halpern R.A.
Professor Principal
1.1  Perrie Halpern R.A.  replied to  Nerm_L @1    3 years ago

So just another reason to complain about Biden, without addressing the actual topic. Interesting.

 
 
 
Nerm_L
Professor Expert
1.1.1  seeder  Nerm_L  replied to  Perrie Halpern R.A. @1.1    3 years ago
So just another reason to complain about Biden, without addressing the actual topic. Interesting.

Joe Biden is ignoring the lessons provided by the pandemic.  The government took steps to restrict nonessential activities to slow the spread of virus until the technological solution of a vaccine could be deployed sufficiently to end the crisis.  And the steps to restrict nonessential activities also reduced CO2 emissions.

Claiming that climate change is a crisis (modelled on rhetoric from the pandemic) suggests that restricting nonessential activities should be done now until the technological solutions can be deployed sufficiently to be effective.  We've inadvertently demonstrated that restricting nonessential activities will work to lower CO2 emissions quickly and significantly.  The same approach adopted for the pandemic would also work for climate change.

Joe Biden's creation of long term, slow motion programs and initiatives doesn't match the political rhetoric of crisis.  Joe Biden is promising outcomes that cannot be achieved during his Presidency.  Joe Biden is greenwashing his political actions.

 

 
 
 
Thrawn 31
Professor Guide
1.2  Thrawn 31  replied to  Nerm_L @1    3 years ago

So fuck it, let’s just not do anything at all then.

 
 
 
Nerm_L
Professor Expert
1.2.1  seeder  Nerm_L  replied to  Thrawn 31 @1.2    3 years ago
So fuck it, let’s just not do anything at all then.

We need to be restricting nonessential activities now to reduce carbon emissions.  The government needs to be involved in managing the economic consequences of restricting nonessential activities to reduce carbon emissions.

The unreliability of alternative energy is going to restrict activities in the future anyway.  We can continue to party now and hope for the best - or - we can begin preparing for a future of less reliable energy where we can't do anything we want, whenever we want.

 
 
 
exexpatnowinTX
Freshman Quiet
1.2.2  exexpatnowinTX  replied to  Nerm_L @1.2.1    3 years ago
We need to be restricting nonessential activities now to reduce carbon emissions.

Since you indicated that, exactly what "nonessential activities" do you suggest?   And who is to determine what is nonessential to all of the people?

As I note in #3 below, it seems all we do is replace one detriment with another.   And no one is daring to note the primary problem this world suffers, overpopulation.   With the population explosion we'll soon run out of resources to feed the people much less be concerned with how they travel.  Soylent Green anyone? //S// 

 
 
 
Nerm_L
Professor Expert
1.2.3  seeder  Nerm_L  replied to  exexpatnowinTX @1.2.2    3 years ago
Since you indicated that, exactly what "nonessential activities" do you suggest?   And who is to determine what is nonessential to all of the people?

Gazing into the crystal ball requires quite a bit of speculation.  So, here goes.

Climate change will require people to become more local and less global.  The pandemic drastically reduced long distance travel with a measurable reduction in carbon emissions.  The tourism and hospitality sectors will take a hit (just as happened during the pandemic).  That suggests a shift away from a services based economy will likely be necessary.

Remote work proved to be adequately viable during the pandemic.  What that suggests is that decentralizing the labor force can provide reductions in carbon emissions.  Transitioning toward local business offices would allow for a permanently decentralized labor force.   People would be working in the communities where they live instead of commuting long distances.  That would require rethinking city planning and zoning.  

Remote work also suggests that cottage industry or job shop businesses may be a viable alternative.  Moving to local and regional job shop businesses may add inefficiency to the supply change but would increase resilience.  Ten production lines spread throughout ten communities would be less prone to disruption than one large factory.  That would require rethinking and modifying business and tax laws to better accommodate sole proprietor type business.

Long distance freight was disrupted for a brief period (during April) of the pandemic.  The largest reduction in carbon emissions were observed at that time, too.  Air freight, in particular, has a much higher carbon footprint per pound of freight than other types of transport.  What that suggests is that restricting same day or next day freight shipping could provide a significant reduction in carbon emissions.  Slower modes of transport may be less convenient but would not be a significant burden.

Of course, it's possible to make a very long list.  But these examples show the type of planning and actions we (and the government) should be thinking about.  The switch to alternative energy will require people to become more local and less global anyway.  We should be preparing for that future with what we do now.  

 
 
 
Perrie Halpern R.A.
Professor Principal
2  Perrie Halpern R.A.    3 years ago

This article is not very scientific. HFC's do not cause global warming. They cause damage to the ozone layer that protects us from radiation from the sun. It is the reason that skin cancer has gone up in the last 100 years. So the reduction of HFC's is very important, especially since we do have alternative coolants now. 

 
 
 
Nerm_L
Professor Expert
2.1  seeder  Nerm_L  replied to  Perrie Halpern R.A. @2    3 years ago
This article is not very scientific. HFC's do not cause global warming. They cause damage to the ozone layer that protects us from radiation from the sun. It is the reason that skin cancer has gone up in the last 100 years. So the reduction of HFC's is very important, especially since we do have alternative coolants now. 

Actually it is CFCs (chlorinated fluorocarbons) that damaged the ozone layer by breaking down to release chlorine in the upper atmosphere.  The purpose of the Montreal Protocol was to ban CFCs.  HFCs (hydrogenated fluorocarbons) were the accepted replacement for CFCs.  HFCs are safe for the ozone layer.  It's pretty easy to confuse the two.  

Both CFCs and HFCs are greenhouse gases that are thousands of time more potent than CO 2

  (Note: the button opens a PDF document.)

Sulfur hexafluoride is worrisome because it is used as a dielectric insulating gas in high-voltage electric transmission equipment and is one of the most potent man made greenhouse gases.  

 
 
 
exexpatnowinTX
Freshman Quiet
3  exexpatnowinTX    3 years ago

For anyone actually interested in what the "green energy" sector is, try this site.  

It's a non affiliated group from of all places Australia, so they have nothing to do with American politics.   There is a very disturbing wealth of information available there which includes salient facts about the American wind energy sector, like what to do with all of those wind turbine blades when they reach their end of life, which by the way has been happening for a couple of years now.  There are locations that have refused to bury anymore cut up blades since they've already filled the available landfill space.

So, what DOES not only America but the world do?  It seems we're in a continual cycle of removing one detriment to our species with yet one more.

 
 
 
Nerm_L
Professor Expert
3.1  seeder  Nerm_L  replied to  exexpatnowinTX @3    3 years ago
So, what DOES not only America but the world do?  It seems we're in a continual cycle of removing one detriment to our species with yet one more.

What should the world do?  Less. 

Less consumption.  Less travel.  Less wasting of energy on nonessential activities.

 
 

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