me d.S. EPA Strongly Supports hew, Low GWP Refrigerant At the mosium oqpmked by tks Japan Refrig- emtion and& Conditionhg Indusm Association (JRAIA) and hlrld in Kobe, Jupun in November 2008 JARN caught up with two repres~ntatiYe~ I @om the United States Environmen~aI Prorectim 1 I &nq(EPA). Wantit~g to k~tow what will happen in thafiture, both in terms of the new President taking oflce, and rhe new regukatiotas and refrig- em- being htmduced the global market. Dr. Stcphea Mmm a~d Ma. Xrinten ZMd& apt@ hsdad the mark& in tsmr of mguI&rp pm~- s m s and new teehobgSeal&wkrpen&. L Dr. Stephen Andemen JARN (J): Well, to b~gim, RE nwxr &h, with t m U~Z pIDhibitiOns Prssdent has been skctd. What is a well as dictating energy dhciency posr opinion on how the Envimn- requirements. It a150 took leadership m~n&l h&caion Apey will be a$- in the treaty negotiations, in favor of fb~td? a~lHCFcpb-outlastyear,justlik~ S m -@A): Wa, let's not Jv. Under the Montreal Pro-4 forget that the ma of J - , there were many partnerships with President Bush is still the President. 1-e assocmm* training and And then, af&r January 20 we have our technology kwmene. so I expect new President. Pre--&ct Ob- that we'll hawe coww has that is one of three agreements, with the Japan Refrig- *, ag fi ecw- eration and Air Conditioning Industry omy and se- sent^ Assmiation (JRAIA), especially. 'lk p~thattherewauldbenodelayin J - h a p ~ ~ ~ ~ f o r the the ozone layer, sponsored by Minis- e.commy, md that addressing ~climak of Economy, and Industry change is a top priority. So that's what WTI) and m. we know about the president- elect. It is testing and - 3 -0p- With respect to the environment, he ing adv- all SaJwS~,xlotlata,we&Ould~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ o ~ o ~ ~ l r r y c r ~ ~ s o = working to limit climate change. We V t that the United andJ~m ]mow that the E~A is an will work very closJy together with apmy,soI,StephenAn&men,dong - m i n d ~ ~ ~ C l ~ ~ b Y with Kri~ten Taddonio work for the bTinging different ideas - I they Prwridwt m~ do more than when working alona J:Cunppr~amo~l8nttoerph& the EPAC roh Br the pvmmmt? SA: we work, as prdkal staff, not political, k the Preeident. So what this mans is that January ZOth, if the new President wants strong climate protec- tion,hP:aalE~thisextcutiye~,the PA, '%ow can this be done?" We typi- cally provide detailed Mugs listing immediate oppomdks, BUC~ as HFC regulations. The result is that even though the President mi@ not how anything about refrigerants, he does know that be. wants greenhouse gas reductions. Of mume, no one knows what will happen far sure in January, but most experts in business and the gmmment in thc Unikd St- qect stmg volnntq measnrcs and mgula- tiom of-. 3: With regards to the Montreal htocol, win dgie Unkd States fake u 1Bader~hip position in combathg gbhi warrrsillg? SA: Yes, considering the Montreal Protocol, Kristen Taddonio, myself, and a man namGd KM. Sarma wrote a bookaboutthelessonsoftbeMonttEal Pro- title4 Technology Twerfor the Ozone Layer: kssomfot. Climau Chnga We know wheo the Unit- adStakesisapartytoakeaty,ittakes a gmat leaQdship position. Tht United Stateswntkymdthereq ' 'of the MonllEal Protocol for domestic reg- Sk Most genius refrigeratiion design- ers take advantage of evehy compmt and way control lhtitionally, when energyefficiencywasnotsoimportan~ and when it was not possible to eas- ily convert W i to direct current withan~andto~avarhble speed motor, people chose whichever size motor ad number of speads, one or two, fm the compressor that is best for the system. And next they alwqs bad m- and h-speed fans because the fan can change the heat s h a n g e in the eqmatm and condenser. Now, WE can have high-pwered motars with inverters, and choose the revolutions per minute, and the Wage is that now a genius air conditioner designer ~anextractmore~gy~hcy~ith a variable-speed motor than without one. Sothe anmertoyrrurqmstioni of course yts, it will be popular my- wbae in the world because emywhere in the world they want the most ef- ficiency, and the inverter and vmiable- speed motor is a very powerful new tool, it's a brilliant design, and simply unbelicwbk. J: What do you think 01 Japa~ssa fschobgy? SA: Well, lapm invented some of the most~ofthemiable~ motor tdaohgy. Japan has been very sincere about energy efficiency, so maybe the incentive8 and the leader- ShrpofJ~matkitpossibhtoiwent a tdmdqy kit because other people were not motivated. So it's a payment to the inventors of Japan and for the gmmmt ledenhip mkbg energy ef6ciency important. It's payback for early ilmmlmt J: You know that the EU decided to Ban HFC-134o in new cam from 2011, and t h e also have gome EU directives to regulate rstentioa of r4frigsmnt. In th UuitBd Sm8, do you haw solrrs phm to es&bihh suck s*reg&tiuns? SA: The h t thing to cmider is that when the European Commission de- signed their F-gas regulation, the BPA was heavily involved. We presented the technical papers about the envirw- mental l-uhltage, about what technol- ogy is mailable, and it was the BPA that made the me far 150 GWl? The original European proposal was for GWP 5, and we said, "No it needs to be 150 so that there would be mcae re- fripmnt camp- far the choice." So even though it appears that a regula- tion happens fmt in Europe, it actually had a team from the United Statcs, the EC and Japan; everywre was involved in the delibb inside Europe. And it was leadership of Germany inside Europe that got the F-gas regulation for cars, and by the E€ Commission itself. So the United States is very aware of what happened in Europe, and of course, if we sbengthen our climate protection with the new Presi- dent,itwwldbenaturalthat~~ build on the success of the European regulation. We might start the transi- tion to it faster thau the J3C 2011 date and we might finish more quickly than the 2017 date. That would be a natural improvement over the Euro- pean ~guhtion. The second thing we would consider, and that we. pmped to the European Commission, is that we would couple energy efficiency hpmwments. So tbat when you make the change between refrigerants, you increase ef6ciency to the maximum economically justifiable level. grim T'addonio and I have proposed that the system have a low GWP refriger- ant, just like Furope, but it would also ham leakage at one-half the current rate, and energy eff~ciency 30% betkx. Hopefully in 5 years people will look back and say, it started in the EC, it used Japanese technology to achieve the objective, and it was the United States' scbedule and bundling of the three parts that in the biggest ~protection.So,weareallpart af the same international team. We are all interested in the best engineens and the best techuology. J: I hmr tbt, for irxampk, DuPoat h IobbyiRg for a Bill to rsgrrlote the qsarrtidg for ECFC atrags or con- rumption in thn UlFitdd S- . Some- one sahi that WrPonl and HoweywII inventtrd thr new refrigerant, so h J ~ ~ t ~ ~ ~ ~ & f i h m d s r b sell iL and they am lob&tngfar the guvernment to rsgulals ECFC con- smptbn. SA: The first thing you can say is that it's absolutely true that DuPont and Hwqwell have a new chemical that baa awyh GWandiswyattrac- tive for car air conditioning and other applications now using HPC-134a It's also true ht Daildn hob an Ma- tim patent for Japan, for R1234yf. So Daikin is in the same position. It's also true that Japanese chemical manu- facturers may have a better pathway fm manufactwing R1234yf at a lower cost. Please note. tbat'~ for the &mi- cal part, nM the qpbtim. So many c~m~entbuaiasmfo these new, mprh pmkts. It's natu- ral and constructiw for the environ- ment to have the compnies with the best technology to push them into the mark& We want peopk with tbe bast envhmmtal tehmlogy to pusb them into the ma&& The second thing that's true is that there are other competing technol- ogy that are also very appealing. For sample, HFC152a is compmble for toxicity and energy efikiwcy, but is mch less =pensive rn buy, since there are no patents what~oever for 152a. If's completely open, and it only has the problem of flammability. But you can have p d engkers sol= ih p&lem of flammability in a m, ad we Mew that by adding a secondary loop, with the entire refrigerent inside the engine compartment, it would be sak enough to d. So Ddbt has an dmast mu- flammable chemical that cm be used without a secondary loop. But if they too much it. people will chow 15% with a wcondary loop, or they'll choose carbon dioxide, which is non- Amble. So there's no single com- pmy tbat holds tbe future, and maybe them's 0th cmipa&s that will p- ent chemicals. 1 think that we should debrate that DuPont puhes the new chanical And the E€ and tht United States. EPA, we pull new chemicals by Mpihg to genesate demand. And wben everyone is pushing and pulling to- getbw, we get tbe bwt solhms, which ofwurseispiti~ehrtheclimslte. J: You seem to call l23&fan WC, but Humbywall psmists Q calling it 'mo-1- w?&at's thedi*lrcs? SA: Any chemist will tell pu that it is an HFC by the nomenclature rules of chemistrytry Any chemist will also tell you that the is a fmedom in the no- mnclatm tocall it mHFO. But may- be DuPont and Honeywell like HFO because it doesn't have the negative connorationufHFC.AndIagmwith tJmt Iagm that achemid huld be judged by life-cycle climate perfor- mance: GW, emistiom, and fuel use. But I alwrqa list it as an HFC because I want us to make a decision about the chemical, not the name. The Life Cycle Climate Performance (LCCP) is the Bingle best metric for climate perf-: of rdiigerated ptems. It could be that a hydrocarbon is best, or perhaps an HFC, HCFC, HFO, HPB or hyh-fhmmther. We are just inter- ested in pdommce [ContiAu~~d mpge 61