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Comment by tristor | Hacker News Reader

If anything they are understating the problem refrigerants cause. Not only are most refrigerants more potent from a greenhouse potential, many are based on CFCs that are ozone depleters. We’ve already created a hole in the ozone layer from CFCs being used as aerosol propellants before that practice was banned, but we still have CFC refrigerants in use globally all over the place. In fact propellants are generally refrigerants.

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As of recent I believe propane and/or CO2 is the only refrigerant left allowed for any indoor use. That seems to be an acceptable gas, or am I mistaken?

I believe the current rule is actually that any refrigerant has to have a GWP (Global Warming Potential) equal to or less than CO2. R290 (propane) has a GWP of 0.02, the new refrigerant for automotive use R1234yf has a GWP of less than 1. CO2 has a GWP of 1.

So it's not required that it's CO2 or R290, but rather than you can use any refrigerant that has a GWP of 1 or less.

R290 seems an ideal refrigerant, especially since the technology to use it as a refrigerant is so old/mature. The challenge is that it's /highly/ flammable. This is true of most refrigerants with a GWP less than 1. R1234yf partly exists because of a desire to reduce flammability.

Is that a rule for cars or small appliances or something? Current residential air conditioners in the US all use R410a which has a GWP over 2000

It's a rule that the EU set for vehicles. EU-based manufacturers were the first to use r1234yf because of this rule, and American auto manufacturers followed suit to make it an industry standard, but there's no rule in the US other than the existing Clean Air Act, AFAIK.

The rule only affects newly manufactured vehicles as well, so there's no requirement to phase out R410A.

At this point most US vehicles use R134. Most R12 cars have been converted as once these things tend to leak, your ripe for a compressor rebuild, flush, oil swap, etc.

Why they set such hard GWP < 1 regulation? Isn't like < 50 enough? It's not emitted every time like CO2 emission of ICE but emitted at accident or poor deconstruction.

I don't know what was in their mind, but my guess is that it's due to automotive HVAC systems using flexible hoses rather than hard piping like stationary HVAC. The consequence of this is that those hoses aren't /truly/ impermeable, and it's commonplace for a vehicle HVAC system to need to be recharged after about 10 years of service life even with no "leaks". So, pretty much all gas going into the system will eventually end up in the atmosphere over time.

It varies by country but I'm not aware of any country that has fully phased out HFCs -- the EU I believe is already imposing import quotas but it is still legal to use.

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