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Comment by kragen | Hacker News Reader

at some point this kind of luddism will become self-defeating; we can only hope that it doesn't engulf the whole human race

this is banning the safest refrigerants, forcing either a switch to dangerously inflammable refrigerants or to systems without refrigeration

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Banning harmful substances isn't luddism. What do you think luddism is? What is the harm of this ban?

You know why these substances exist right? Because the prior substances were cutting a hole in the ozone layer. And at the time the new-then substances weren't proven bad yet.

And those ozone eating substances themselves came about because the prior refrigerants were more flammable or poisonous and the then-new substances were not yet proven bad.

It's an endless game of whack-a-mole.

I don't think any of this is alarming. Nor a reason we should stop trying to solve new problems as we learn of them.

I'd rather be exposed to the known-known of propane refrigeration in my consumer devices (car, window unit, refrigerator, mini-split, etc) than risk exposure poorly understood chemicals to reduce the chances of a refrigerant fire from one tiny decimal per capita per lifetime to a slightly smaller tiny decimal per capita per lifetime.

It sounds like an endless march of gradual forward progress, since each generation of refrigerants has been less destructive that the one before.

the refrigerants that will still be allowed are literally the ones used in the very first vapor-compression refrigerators in the 19th century: blends of light alkanes, called 'chimogene' at the time; see us patent 87,084 from the year 01869 for example

these (and sulfur dioxide) are what cfcs were invented to replace because they were dangerously inflammable

if your 'endless march of gradual forward progress' ends up where it started after a century and a half of 'progress' i really question your definition of 'forward'

> You know why these substances exist right? Because the prior substances were cutting a hole in the ozone layer.

Refrigeration may end up back where it originally started (before freon even), using ammonia. Ammonia is somewhat dangerous on a local level (you don't want an ammonia leak in your house..) but AFAIK it doesn't eat up ozone and the local hazard is something that can be mitigated with the right sort of product design.

> Ammonia is somewhat dangerous on a local level

Like saying that the Ohio train disaster may cause lung irritation, that quite undersells the problem.

Ammonia refrigeration is inherently dangerous and has been banned from domestic refrigerators for a long time for good reason. Some regulations are written in blood.

I think it could be possible to use ammonia in domestic refrigerators safely if appropriate measures were taken. Particularly, require that refrigerators be installed with vent pipes leading from a tamper-resistant enclosure straight to the outside. Such vents would be similar to those used in waste plumbing to protect people from toxic sewer gasses like hydrogen sulfide: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drain-waste-vent_system

But jabl is probably right and something like propane would make more sense.

I don't think we'll see ammonia used in domestic refrigeration. Industrial use, sure.

I think what we'll see for domestic refrigerants (refrigerators, AC, heat pumps) is hydrocarbons like propane or butane (already a reality for refrigerators in most of the world), and in some cases CO2.

i went to a hotel with an ammonia refrigerator in the kitchen a couple of weeks ago

Yeah, ammonia is very common in industrial refrigeration, especially big specialized systems that need tons and tons of refrigerant, as illustrated by this famous accident in which 30,000 lb. of the stuff was released:

https://www.csb.gov/millard-refrigerated-services-ammonia-re...

this was a 60-liter fridge with 117 grams of ammonia in it in the kitchen of the hotel suite

The meta goal of greenwashing means you can't use Peltier coolers as it would take insane amounts of power to replace a condensing fridge, like dedicated circuit 15 amps. They're very inefficient... if you're burning coal. What if you're not burning coal?

Consider this loophole... imagine a crappy anti-green energy wasting Peltier cooler connected to a solar panel. Half the day it chills down to -70C and then all night long it slowly warms up to -50C until sunrise. Probably the bottom quarter of the fridge is a giant ice block with fans blowing on it when the fridge above warms up, whereas the cooling is solar and below and is on full blast whenever the sun is up.

Minor problem is now you're dumping 1500 watts of heat into your kitchen whenever the sun's up. Nice in the winter, not so much in the summer. And some idiot is going to gain access to the cold-sink to "chill their vodka" and end up with frostbite when they touch the -70C sink. And good luck periodically defrosting that beast. But, in general, its not an overly crazy idea.

No, it is utterly terrible solution, as even the worst refrigerant beats peltier coolers.

My point is even the best refrigerant powered by coal or even "rando outlet power on average" is less green than the worst Peltier cooler powered by a solar panel. So as per OPs original claim that if we ban every chemical more hazardous than distilled water we can have no refrigeration is not entirely true, we can in theory redesign the entire system around not using any refrigerants.

It would be an environmental disaster if not powered by solar, or maybe wind, of course, but it would technically work.

Well, no, coz you can use refrigerant like CO2 and that could be taken from atmosphere.

i agree that tecs are a plausible solution for some applications, and i have in fact lived in a house with a small tec-driven refrigerator, but phase-change energy storage or tces are more viable solutions to the daily energy storage problem than the sensible-heat energy storage approach you suggest, among other things because the large ΔT you suggest would entail an absurdly large stack of tecs

you can solve the waste heat problem by putting the tecs outside and running a coolant loop through the wall, filled with brine or propylene glycol; in the case of pces, the chilled coolant from the tecs freezes the ice inside your kitchen, in the ice reservoir which is used to cool the icebox

tces systems (not to be confused with tecs) can be driven directly by solar heat rather than through pv

however, i am not convinced that tecs are a viable alternative to vapor-compression refrigeration in general

How do you feel about leaded gas?

> How do you feel about leaded gas?

I think it should be banned.

Sadly, aviation has enough political muscle that they're still allowed to use it. Which is amazing to me, given lead's extremely harmful effects.

Do you really think the people flying their small cessna with 100LL have so much political muscle? I strongly doubt so.

It's not the pilots alone, it is also the piece-of-shit-airplane industry which employs a handful of people here and there, enough to have a little suction in Congress.

Also GA is, in the end, a relatively small-scale activity, so leaded avgas isn't much of a public health hazard like leaded automotive gas was back in the day. More of an occupational hazard for people working on and flying those planes, and higher maintenance requirement on the engines.

Hopefully they can manage to roll out G100UL at scale so 100LL can finally die. And then that final TEL plant on the planet can be shut down for good.

Let's not forget those small airports where nearby residents are at higher risk due to leaded avgas. That's why small airports have been forced to close.

Get rid of leaded avgas and we can have less municipal airports closures.

The general aviation industry is protected because it's part of the pilot training pipeline, and that is important because airplanes (both commercial and military) have a great deal of importance to governments. About 5% of the American GDP is attributed to commercial aviation. Compare that figure to the number of deaths caused by leaded avgas, and you don't need conspiracy theories to explain the outcome.

> Sadly, aviation has enough political muscle that they're still allowed to use it.

Does it? GA is a shadow of its former self.

There's already a substitute. But it's precisely how small general aviation has become that's stifling the transition. The volume of avgas made today is already pretty small, compared to other gas users, and there's ony a handful of plants that can make it. Then there's all the small airfields with existing avgas pumps.

Without a big push, it will take time. The fastest way would be with a carrot; the stick can come later.

leaded gas should be limited to extremely low-volume applications, because it's enormously harmful

this regulation is more like banning unleaded gas

There are better octane boosters, the only reason lead was used was because it was marginally cheaper.

But it's not like unleaded gas. Evidence has been mounting that PFAS are the modern 21st century's lead, hence bans like this.

privacy invasion and this kind of discourse are the 21st century's lead

there are pfas that are pretty bad but the refrigerants in question are not among them

Snark doesn’t do anything but virtue signal.

i think it's a reasonable question directed at clarifying their understanding of my position

or anyway a person who wanted to clarify their understanding of my position could very reasonably ask that question

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