One of those mind bending stories about modern life. You know all those A/C units in houses and cars that get old and leak refrigerant? Well that refrigerant is a potent GHG, 2066 times worse than CO2.
And then there are heat pumps. In the Grand Electrification of Everything, we need to replace all those gas&oil boilers we use for hot water and winter central heating. The obvious choice is heat pumps that are really just A/C in reverse.
So another huge demand for refrigerant. And potentially refrigerant losses.
Can you get combination heat pumps that give you hot water all year round, heating in winter and A/C in summer?
Fridges and freezers basically run forever until they're scrapped. They don't leak or lose refrigerant. So why does A/C in homes and cars just leak?
@jbond a few points 2 note on this that should keep you optimistic:
1. Generally v.Small qty of refrigerant in each #HeatPump
2. World moving towards lower GWP refrigerants eg: #R32:GWP=675, & lots now are moving to #R290:GWP=<3 (aka Propane) or #R744:GWP:1 (aka CO2!)
3. Looking holistically, any leaks (which with regulation can be mitigated) are far outweighed from operational #CO2 savings vs use of fossil gas, direct #Electrification (given #CoP) etc.
@jbond not to say leaks are not a problem, but with regulation pushing GWP downwards it helps.
My Daikin #HeatPump for example has 3.8KG R32 @ GWP 675
…so if all of that leaked(bad), that would be 2,565KG CO2e
In winter we averaged around ~25KG CO2 / day with previous gas boiler (~130kWh/day)
So that R32 leak equates to ~100 days of winter heating with fossil gas in our house.
R290 #HeatPump’s with GWP of <3 are becoming popular, & would massively improve things further
Final Round Player 😷🇪🇺🍸
Stephen Crown