Banning f-gas and the move to r290

[HughF]

https://www.euractiv.com/section/energy-environment/opinion/f-gas-revision-far-more-than-a-climate-victory-for-europe/
 

Popped up in my Google feed this morning, seems an interesting point of discussion…

[ProDave]

It's a sales pitch to sell EU made heat pumps with EU sourced gasses.  I see nothing technical in there to say WHY we should change.

 

Heat pumps only let their F gas out if there is a leak.  How often does that happen?  any statistics?

 

If they need a repair that requires degassing that is supposed to be done by an F gas engineer who will recover the gas, not vent it.

 

I suspect most of the F gas emissions to atmosphere are illegal improper disposal of end of life refrigerators?

 

Another whopping "fail" is car air conditioning.  I was somewhat horrified when a previous car went for a timing belt change, something it needed every 5 years.  When I got it back "oh your aircon will need re gassing".  To get to the front of the engine to do the timing belt the water radiator and the aircon heat exchanger needed to come out so they just vented the gas.

[HughF]

I get that it’s a sales pitch, yes, but a move to r290 is a good thing. It’s a better gas, it isn’t patented by Honeywell or whoever, it has a low gwp, and it delivers comparable performance with a low charged weight.

[ProDave]

7 minutes ago, HughF said:

I get that it’s a sales pitch, yes, but a move to r290 is a good thing. It’s a better gas, it isn’t patented by Honeywell or whoever, it has a low gwp, and it delivers comparable performance with a low charged weight.

You succeeded in one sentence to say why it is a good idea to change, where that entire page linked to failed to make the case other than "it's made in the EU"

[saveasteading]

2 hours ago, ProDave said:

supposed to be done by an F gas engineer who will recover the gas, not vent it.

Perhaps you have hit on it.  "Supposed."

 

If your car needs regassing, presumably some or all has escaped.

[Beelbeebub]

3 hours ago, ProDave said:

You succeeded in one sentence to say why it is a good idea to change, where that entire page linked to failed to make the case other than "it's made in the EU"

I guess one point might be that to date the vast majority of HPs made have been for cooling and the Asian (and Southern US) market has been the main market 

 

So the majority of expertise in those areas is in cooling for a climate that rarely sees frost. 

 

The European market is different, heating is a much bigger component, defrosting is a big issue. Architectural considerations are bigger, water based systems are prevalent in many markets. 

 

In the same way European car makers male more vehicles suited to European cities and US makers tend to have a lot of vehicle's focused on US needs, maybe more euro manufacturers will produce better suited products. 

 

The need for a gas boiler replacement type format is very much a euro thing. Asia and the US tend not to use the box on the wall boilers that are so common in Europe. 

 

R290 had been hamstrung in Europe by regulations. China and India have been using split r290 a2a units for a decade or more. 

[ProDave]

56 minutes ago, saveasteading said:

If your car needs regassing, presumably some or all has escaped.

The mechanic dumped it all to atmosphere because it was in the way to do the timing belt.

 

What he should have done is told me to go to a proper Fgas engineer to have it degassed with the gas recovered.  but that would have cost me money, his solution did not......

[SteamyTea]

37 minutes ago, ProDave said:

but that would have cost me money, his solution did not.

Well not directly.

 

My car A/C stopped this year. I assume the gas has leaked out, taken 16 years. Quick Google and it seems cars have around 30oz of gas, 850gm.

So, on average 55g/year lost.

R134a has a GWP of close to 1500, so about 0.1 tonnes of CO_2e.

I better drive 600 miles less. Each year. That is one trip up to see my Mother.

 

I don't think leaky car A/C is the big problem.

[saveasteading]

Boffins please tell me is there a reason against  using this other substance?

1 hour ago, SteamyTea said:

about 0.1 tonnes of CO_2e.

 

x how many cars? Why not?

[SteamyTea]

Just now, saveasteading said:

Boffins please tell me is there a reason against  using this other substance?

 

x how many cars? Why not?

There is about a billion cars in the world, they account for about a quarter of global CO₂ emissions.

Now not all will have A/C, maybe 70%, and a fair number of them won't leak, and when it comes to scrapping them, some will be done properly.

If we are to spend money on reducing CO₂, car air con is not the place to do it.

Probably a free air filter and set of sparking plugs will have a greater effect.

[saveasteading]

And using R134a would be bad because...

[RobLe]

3 hours ago, saveasteading said:

 

If your car needs regassing, presumably some or all has escaped.

 

ICE cars generally run a compressor mechanically from some rotating engine part, with a rotating "seal".  Regular heatpumps have actual seals, or welds.

Our old ICE car a/c never worked when we got it at around 5 yr old sadly.  Tried to regas it once, didn't last long.  14 yr old Mondeo.  One day we will ditch it and the leaf and get a long distance BEV with a/c, joy.

 

[sharpener]

21 hours ago, RobLe said:

 

ICE cars generally run a compressor mechanically from some rotating engine part, with a rotating "seal".  Regular heatpumps have actual seals, or welds.

Our old ICE car a/c never worked when we got it at around 5 yr old sadly.  Tried to regas it once, didn't last long.  14 yr old Mondeo.  One day we will ditch it and the leaf and get a long distance BEV with a/c, joy.

 

 

Yes, the rotating shaft seals are the Achilles heel of car aircon. Was once quoted £800 to replace the seals and re-gas with new(er) legal refrigerant on an old Volvo.

 

You may find yr "long distance BEV with a/c" becomes a short distance BEV once you actually turn the aircon on. It shortens the apparent range of mine by some 10 - 20% so we did not use it a lot on Monday despite the OAT of up to 28C. In fact though we arrived home with 66 miles to spare so might have had more benefit from it in retrospect.

[SteamyTea]

32 minutes ago, sharpener said:

rotating shaft seals are the Achilles heel of car aircon

So if the gas leaks out of them, no point getting a regas.

32 minutes ago, sharpener said:

may find yr "long distance BEV with a/c" becomes a short distance BEV once you actually turn the aircon on. It shortens the apparent range of mine by some 10 - 20%

If your Aircon draws 5 kW, which would cool a 5m³ cabin a huge amount, it would drain a 100 kWh battery in 20 hours.

It takes 0.33 kWh/m³.K to cool air.

So if you had a total temperature difference equivalent of 20K, that would be 6.6 kWh, so about an hour's drive to use 7% of the charge.

 

I suspect a BEV Aircon used a lot less power, maybe 1.5 kW.

Edited September 6, 2023 by SteamyTea

[Beelbeebub]

36 minutes ago, sharpener said:

 

Yes, the rotating shaft seals are the Achilles heel of car aircon. Was once quoted £800 to replace the seals and re-gas with new(er) legal refrigerant on an old Volvo.

 

You may find yr "long distance BEV with a/c" becomes a short distance BEV once you actually turn the aircon on. It shortens the apparent range of mine by some 10 - 20% so we did not use it a lot on Monday despite the OAT of up to 28C. In fact though we arrived home with 66 miles to spare so might have had more benefit from it in retrospect.

My old mondeo with near 250k on the clock lost a noticeable amount of power when the ac kicked in. 

 

We had to turn the ac off to tackle the hill by the "air balloon" pub on the a417/419. 

[SteamyTea]

5 minutes ago, Beelbeebub said:

My old mondeo with near 250k on the clock lost a noticeable amount of power when the ac kicked in. 

 

We had to turn the ac off to tackle the hill by the "air balloon" pub on the a417/419. 

As I said earlier, Aircon in cars is not really the environmental issue. New piston rings, in your case, may have been.

(I am wondering if I can get another 14k miles out of my throbbing dual mass clutch  then I will have done 250k miles on it)

[sharpener]

1 hour ago, SteamyTea said:

I suspect a BEV Aircon used a lot less power, maybe 1.5 kW.

 

so on that assumption a 6 hr journey would use 9kWh which is >10% of the battery.

 

1 hour ago, Beelbeebub said:

We had to turn the ac off to tackle the hill by the "air balloon" pub on the a417/419.

 

Problem solved! The Air Balloon pub was being demolished when I passed by in ?April this year.

[SteamyTea]

31 minutes ago, sharpener said:

so on that assumption a 6 hr journey would use 9kWh which is >10% of the battery.

Possibly.

 

Some BEVs have heat pumps that condition the batteries as well.

Then add on the 'services' to keep them connected, it is a marvel that they can go anywhere.

[sharpener]

5 hours ago, SteamyTea said:

Some BEVs have heat pumps that condition the batteries as well.

 

Yes. I wondered if mine was using the aircon to keep the battery cool on Monday's journey. Difficult to say because the range readings are not always consistent. But the range is overall much better than it was in winter when I am pretty sure it uses it to keep it warm. Another long hot drive tomorrow, I might be more adventurous in the use of the aircon.

 

Fortunately the LiFePO4 chemistry in my house battery is much more forgiving and doesn't need all the mollycoddling. But its energy density is nowhere near as high.

[HughF]

9 hours ago, sharpener said:

 

Yes. I wondered if mine was using the aircon to keep the battery cool on Monday's journey. Difficult to say because the range readings are not always consistent. But the range is overall much better than it was in winter when I am pretty sure it uses it to keep it warm. Another long hot drive tomorrow, I might be more adventurous in the use of the aircon.

 

Fortunately the LiFePO4 chemistry in my house battery is much more forgiving and doesn't need all the mollycoddling. But its energy density is nowhere near as high.

LiFePO4 will Coldgate in UK winters without battery preconditioning. Model 3 SR+ with the new LFP pack has a pretty aggressive battery heating strategy, lots of videos and tests run by Bjorn Nyland showing this. It’s a great chemistry, but it does need almost as much thermal management as NCA/NCM.