Cutting emissions from refrigerators

Refrigerators just got greener. I just read that the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers joined hands with the EPA to cut back on hydrofluorocarbon emissions in fridges and freezers. HFCs show up in the coolant that keeps your ice cream cold.  Manufacturers also use HFCs to get the insulation in between the casing and the insides of the refrigerator or freezer.

HFCs were a step in the right direction from industry wide use of chloroflurocarbons and other enemies of the ozone. But not good enough…HFCs are major greenhouse gases when in the atmosphere. In fact, if you think carbon dioxide is a major player in the greenhouse effect, CO2 doesn’t have anything on HFCs whose potency register over a thousand times more than CO2.

AHAM says this program is going to affect over 10 million refrigerators and freezers in the US, and 60 million all over the world each year. Hopefully it will also cut the costs of these appliances, as the price of refrigerants and blowing agents with HFCs keeps climbing. In fact, this is a good incentive to the appliance manufacturers to cooperate with the EPA in the new program that is going to encompass reducing emissions in all phases of refrigerator and freezer production.