9 ms·

This reminds me of a conversation I had with the AC repairman last year. Backstory: we have an old AC unit that uses freon. The repairman mentioned that freon

This reminds me of a conversation I had with the AC repairman last year. Backstory: we have an old AC unit that uses freon. The repairman mentioned that freon is no longer available for new AC units. I asked if you could still buy freon and he said yes, existing supplies were grandfathered in. I then commented that the price of freon must have sky-rocketed and he said: "yes, it did for a while but then it became cheaper to just get a new unit rather than fill up an old unit with freon." I would imagine that as the price of IPv4 addresses crosses some threshold, people will just start going to IPv6. As Michael Crichton once said in one of his books: "There was no subsidy that caused people to switch from horses to cars". They were just cheaper and easier to operate.

freedomben 7y ago
I had an 88 Chevy Pickup Truck that used the old style freon (R12). Man that stuff worked so good. In 100 degree heat that truck would stay nice and cold. It took over 20 years before the alternatives were competitive.
- natermer 7y ago
  Propane makes a good substitute for R12 with very little modifications. I wouldn't use it inside a home or anything like that, but I have used it to make older vehicles blow cold. It's extremely good refrigerant. The biggest problem people have is that it ends up too cold and icing up the system. It sounds dangerous, but it's really not. Propane is only flammable with the correct mixture of air. Otherwise you couldn't light it with a blow torch. Even if you have a leaky system it isn't going to leak fast enough to cause a issue. Also propane is significantly heavier then air so anything that leaks out is going to go to ground. And the amount of propane you use is not very significant. Cars that end up having issues with propane are typically home built propane fuel conversions with no ventilation under the tanks or connections. The propane can then pool in the low places and build up enough to cause a explosion.
  - freedomben 7y ago
    This might be the most amazing and interesting comment I've ever seen. Thank you :-) What you say makes good sense too since many RVs have propane refrigerators. I've long wondered how it works exactly. Probably time for a DuckDuckGo search.
    - Vendan 7y ago
      Propane fridges actually burn the propane for heat, so it's not using it as a "refrigerant", just as a heat source.
      - userbinator 7y ago
        Those commonly use ammonia and hydrogen as the actual refrigerant: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absorption_refrigerator https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absorption_refrigerator
  - glenneroo 7y ago
    Would a propane tank pose any danger to occupants during/after an accident?
    - Johnny555 7y ago
      Proponents of propane as refrigerant claim that it's not more dangerous than the 10 gallons of gasoline in the gas tank. I'm not sure I agree. Since propane is heavier than air, it doesn't dissipate as quickly as, say, natural gas would. And while its true that you need the right mixture of propane and air for it to ignite, with the right-mixture, you've got a fuel-air explosive formed right next to an ignition source (the car's engine and battery).
      - bigiain 7y ago
        Like propane, gasoline fumes are also heavier than air. This becomes a problem in boats, where propane and/or gasoline fumes "collect" down in the hull with no natural ventilation path. Boats with propane stoves or gasoline motors need gas detectors and ventilation to ensure dangerous (suffocating or exploding) levels don't build up below decks...
- semyonsh 7y ago
  I used to work at a company that recovered and decommissioned freon. If some tech came by with a cylinder filled with R12 it would many times mysteriously disappear from storage. Probably because it sells for an insane price and is very rare in my region.
rdtsc 7y ago
I know someone who was hoarding banned freon and selling it on the side. The government eventually had caught on that people were doing it, but they also understood that punishing people even harder for selling it wouldn't work. So instead they started to provide incentives to convert refrigeration units to not use that kind of freon. It's been a few years so not sure how effective that was, but I thought it was interesting.
- challenger22 7y ago
  See ebay listings for how you can buy R-12 by stating you are a reseller: https://www.ebay.com/itm/R12-Refrigerant-12-Virgin-Pure-R-12-28-oz-Includes-On-Off-Valve-1-75-lbs/152776415484?hash=item23922f18fc&enc=AQADAAAC8FjVrDbVsZ8oH%2F8PNHtt9VX4%2Fw7FZcmMuqsX8uaFEduV%2BYPv5x9E90MJWe8E8ZRSFi0xcWt1MHaVwLlqNCUAUI8%2B7IJPiYSLCitAgZLOKlKleqtoWnz7oYLKZGZlhgeaJ%2F06dHNODlacVvtQSpewJPhqItpLf5wJq%2FDshWYOyCEkVd5ck7puPifJeP5r5t3sMF%2Bkn5P%2BMDUXdhKkOcY9RKDX8UZwPUEbIYXtgmUVxoCkDerojYKTUM80HARxDsD%2BE%2FTRI0oSdIjrdXHyTL%2BElUTuUOoFVYNMz4gFoxgCmv8In1IDh2GCECTuUnzoiSUHYetS17%2FeTBk9Ld5H8t3gaRWh6X%2BVsrh%2BgBri1HBEr7knYYY3Ohoc1UV2kZW9beAchPJRBHXpBOF%2FJlRkngtZ5D7mKWU%2FayqUu8kJ23tFsMnaLbwdNirMzTm7Lcg%2FYYSwY9ZyHrPu14SK84z7pwOM%2FtXnX4ji6puq8FhmjT%2Fkx%2FHsPUkKl8MXpXIfrlnCTxyctLRUALTUO%2F1BfBsLKNenOYKWg4O0OqAH%2FBhdTc3tvr05y3%2Bd838lzJ9wXQfo7ETzOpTyLM73f2aoy%2FEZ4I33jNGqNyZJD3wtamA4t0mks%2BoAzTqZKlFkTMkHVAcc%2FqjDfm2UoyLHGU4S6kO6pyfc%2BmT2ytWxCGTLS1zYGGAPv8Fzx86n9FU7sqAlQ6vfNaChLtv%2FXYSdG1y53%2FImGgdCu126wCTWJ1QSSPYVkSptNhRvzdNg%2Bc%2FRfpf%2FrIhaW%2BGSfkoA4N1WaIx8r%2BVyypRvIwmqKJjbssuqyrS%2BoxhHI9%2FMfU3s1LHRvvtbMhciqF%2Fz7RsT2al%2BnI8TuylHBbh8Vtccvr0aXvOGxBjSYRfRS%2FBauZMQewxPRTN%2BFUWrJgy26XNQCe7Z2wQQRfaVBHRYnleFDOappbQ256qUHJRQNxHfQXXdhJXIDxJdOUyV%2F5Jf7sBUzq0HVXcNhlqMtBu2LVWFd%2B5uAGGAcbNg55jemu8m&checksum=152776415484086194be068f412cba5fc1e1e9ac36bc https://www.ebay.com/itm/R12-Refrigerant-12-Virgin-Pure-R-12... >An EPA certificate is required to purchase R12 Refrigerant "OR" a statement saying you are purchasing this for "Resale Only". The "Resale Only" statement can be in the form of an e-mail. Pretty easy for Joe Handyman to buy.
  - rdtsc 7y ago
    Yeah I like the strong warning of needing a certification then the "OR just say it's for resale" part. In my case it was in a different (European) country. I think they may be slightly more strict there.
lordnacho 7y ago
Fridge related trick: In certain countries you could get carbon credits for closing down old factories that made old style CFC fridges, because of course those are not great for the environment. So then some wily operators started building new "old factories" that they could get credits for in order to "convert" to new factories. Story was told by a friend of mine in the industry at the time, I don't recall the finer details.
- nathancahill 7y ago
  There's an initiative in Guatemala where land owners are paid an amount of money every year for each acre of their land that they reforest. Naturally, land owners immediately started clear-cutting virgin rainforest, selling the lumber, and then collecting a payout from the government for planting pine trees that they'll raise for 10 years before they'll cut them down for lumber too.
  - yojo 7y ago
    Sounds like another example of the cobra effect: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobra_effect https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobra_effect
    - kebman 7y ago
      That's a really interesting effect! Thank you for making me aware of it! However it should be noted that the reason it backfired, was because people exploited a weakness in the system, so to speak. It could even be that they did something illegal and fraudulent, since the bounties were obviously for animals that weren't bred in captivity, and for wild animals that were properly killed so they wouldn't be able to procreate. Thus the question remains on whether the measures had effective ways of dealing with such fraud, or whether that would make the whole thing more expensive than other measures.
- M2Ys4U 7y ago
  A scheme in Northern Ireland (colloquially known as "Cash for Ash") was set up where heating properties using renewable fuels (mainly biomass) was subsidised, only the subsidy was priced higher than the cost for fuel causing people to heat empty properties just to claim the subsidy. The whole thing cost almost half a billion pounds. There have been huge allegations of fraud and it even brought down NI's power-sharing executive (~ the regional government) in 2017. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_Heat_Incentive_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_Heat_Incentive_scand...
Waterluvian 7y ago
This is how I feel climate change will be tackled (whether too late or not). It will just become cheaper to go green and being green is just a side effect.
- sundvor 7y ago
  Yet initiatives like Carbon tax have been shot down (Australia) by big money, putting dangerous delays into the schedule.
  - jlarocco 7y ago
    I think carbon taxes are the opposite of what the OP is talking about. Carbon taxes are artificial barriers to using fossil fuels. On the other hand, when technology improves so that electric cars cost less per mile than gasoline cars, people won't necessarily buy them to be green, they'll buy them because they're a cheaper form of transportation that happens to be greener. Same with wind and solar power. When a solar farm on 10 acres of land can produce more energy than a coal plant on the same 10 acres, then power companies will build them instead of coal - not to be "green", but to make more money.
    - sundvor 7y ago
      Fair point, and an important one! As we're running out of time we ideally need both to happen, but it's good that green tech is becoming increasingly more financially viable. As a little gem, just about all reports from the SA Tesla battery installation make for simply fantastic reading.
      - kebman 7y ago
        Cars are a red herring. Even gasoline and diesel car aren't really contributing that much to world pollution compared to the real culprits, such as ocean liners and huge cargo ships. These ships alone pollute more than all the cars on Earth. What do you think about going after the things that are actually harmful, instead of following a red herring? I mean, sure, cars should of course be dealt with also, but if you really want to lower carbon emissions fast, then shouldn't we go for the big fish first?
userbinator 7y ago
I find the CFC situation to be rather interesting because it not only made it illegal to intentionally release them into the atmosphere (which would, if anything, just cause people to release them from things like old fridges and ACs even more frequently so as not to be caught with the "prohibited substance"), but by stopping production and keeping it legal to continue to use, created a market for recovering/reselling/reusing that helps to keep them out of the atmosphere. It's the difference between saying "it's bad for the environment so don't release it", and "it's rare and valuable so don't let it escape, but recover, resell, and reuse" --- not everyone believes in global warming or cares as much about the former, but the latter is a powerful motivation.
- toper-centage 7y ago
  Can we do that with carbon? It's rare and valuable, let's try to contain it as much as possible! We're basically releasing TONS of what is basically black gold to the sky!!
  - adrianN 7y ago
    Unfortunately coal is not rare and not very valuable and pricing in the massive externalities to make it so is "bad for jobs".
    - SturgeonsLaw 7y ago
      If carbon was placed under a cap and trade system, where it had a price, and entities which emit CO2 pay for that privilege, then that externality won't be so external, those who do the most damage pay the highest price, and those who can perform carbon capture and storage can realise a revenue stream.
bigiain 7y ago
> I would imagine that as the price of IPv4 addresses crosses some threshold, people will just start going to IPv6. Instead we see "carrier grade NAT" and I end up with IP addresses like 10.X.X.X on some of my cellular devices... 'If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.' -- Henry Ford
- subway 7y ago
  A mix of the two seems more likely -- ipv6-only to the device, with nat64/dns64 used to handle ipv4 traffic. T-Mobile has been ipv6-only for devices supporting 464xlat since 2014.
- zhte415 7y ago
  Henry Ford didn't actually say that, though it was in line with his thinking, perhaps. https://hbr.org/2011/08/henry-ford-never-said-the-fast https://hbr.org/2011/08/henry-ford-never-said-the-fast
  - yason 7y ago
    The article didn't say Ford didn't say the phrase but that there's no evidence Ford ever said that. So, the truth is (as with many historical things) that no one really knows the truth.
    - zhte415 7y ago
      Stackexchange already did that line of thinking (and cite this article). Enlightening comments. https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/37637/did-henry-ford-say-if-i-had-asked-people-what-they-wanted-they-would-have-said https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/37637/did-henry...

freedomben 7y ago

I had an 88 Chevy Pickup Truck that used the old style freon (R12). Man that stuff worked so good. In 100 degree heat that truck would stay nice and cold. It took over 20 years before the alternatives were competitive.

natermer 7y ago
Propane makes a good substitute for R12 with very little modifications. I wouldn't use it inside a home or anything like that, but I have used it to make older vehicles blow cold. It's extremely good refrigerant. The biggest problem people have is that it ends up too cold and icing up the system. It sounds dangerous, but it's really not. Propane is only flammable with the correct mixture of air. Otherwise you couldn't light it with a blow torch. Even if you have a leaky system it isn't going to leak fast enough to cause a issue. Also propane is significantly heavier then air so anything that leaks out is going to go to ground. And the amount of propane you use is not very significant. Cars that end up having issues with propane are typically home built propane fuel conversions with no ventilation under the tanks or connections. The propane can then pool in the low places and build up enough to cause a explosion.
- freedomben 7y ago
  This might be the most amazing and interesting comment I've ever seen. Thank you :-) What you say makes good sense too since many RVs have propane refrigerators. I've long wondered how it works exactly. Probably time for a DuckDuckGo search.
  - Vendan 7y ago
    Propane fridges actually burn the propane for heat, so it's not using it as a "refrigerant", just as a heat source.
    - userbinator 7y ago
      Those commonly use ammonia and hydrogen as the actual refrigerant: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absorption_refrigerator https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absorption_refrigerator
- glenneroo 7y ago
  Would a propane tank pose any danger to occupants during/after an accident?
  - Johnny555 7y ago
    Proponents of propane as refrigerant claim that it's not more dangerous than the 10 gallons of gasoline in the gas tank. I'm not sure I agree. Since propane is heavier than air, it doesn't dissipate as quickly as, say, natural gas would. And while its true that you need the right mixture of propane and air for it to ignite, with the right-mixture, you've got a fuel-air explosive formed right next to an ignition source (the car's engine and battery).
    - bigiain 7y ago
      Like propane, gasoline fumes are also heavier than air. This becomes a problem in boats, where propane and/or gasoline fumes "collect" down in the hull with no natural ventilation path. Boats with propane stoves or gasoline motors need gas detectors and ventilation to ensure dangerous (suffocating or exploding) levels don't build up below decks...
semyonsh 7y ago
I used to work at a company that recovered and decommissioned freon. If some tech came by with a cylinder filled with R12 it would many times mysteriously disappear from storage. Probably because it sells for an insane price and is very rare in my region.

rdtsc 7y ago

I know someone who was hoarding banned freon and selling it on the side. The government eventually had caught on that people were doing it, but they also understood that punishing people even harder for selling it wouldn't work. So instead they started to provide incentives to convert refrigeration units to not use that kind of freon. It's been a few years so not sure how effective that was, but I thought it was interesting.

challenger22 7y ago
See ebay listings for how you can buy R-12 by stating you are a reseller: https://www.ebay.com/itm/R12-Refrigerant-12-Virgin-Pure-R-12-28-oz-Includes-On-Off-Valve-1-75-lbs/152776415484?hash=item23922f18fc&enc=AQADAAAC8FjVrDbVsZ8oH%2F8PNHtt9VX4%2Fw7FZcmMuqsX8uaFEduV%2BYPv5x9E90MJWe8E8ZRSFi0xcWt1MHaVwLlqNCUAUI8%2B7IJPiYSLCitAgZLOKlKleqtoWnz7oYLKZGZlhgeaJ%2F06dHNODlacVvtQSpewJPhqItpLf5wJq%2FDshWYOyCEkVd5ck7puPifJeP5r5t3sMF%2Bkn5P%2BMDUXdhKkOcY9RKDX8UZwPUEbIYXtgmUVxoCkDerojYKTUM80HARxDsD%2BE%2FTRI0oSdIjrdXHyTL%2BElUTuUOoFVYNMz4gFoxgCmv8In1IDh2GCECTuUnzoiSUHYetS17%2FeTBk9Ld5H8t3gaRWh6X%2BVsrh%2BgBri1HBEr7knYYY3Ohoc1UV2kZW9beAchPJRBHXpBOF%2FJlRkngtZ5D7mKWU%2FayqUu8kJ23tFsMnaLbwdNirMzTm7Lcg%2FYYSwY9ZyHrPu14SK84z7pwOM%2FtXnX4ji6puq8FhmjT%2Fkx%2FHsPUkKl8MXpXIfrlnCTxyctLRUALTUO%2F1BfBsLKNenOYKWg4O0OqAH%2FBhdTc3tvr05y3%2Bd838lzJ9wXQfo7ETzOpTyLM73f2aoy%2FEZ4I33jNGqNyZJD3wtamA4t0mks%2BoAzTqZKlFkTMkHVAcc%2FqjDfm2UoyLHGU4S6kO6pyfc%2BmT2ytWxCGTLS1zYGGAPv8Fzx86n9FU7sqAlQ6vfNaChLtv%2FXYSdG1y53%2FImGgdCu126wCTWJ1QSSPYVkSptNhRvzdNg%2Bc%2FRfpf%2FrIhaW%2BGSfkoA4N1WaIx8r%2BVyypRvIwmqKJjbssuqyrS%2BoxhHI9%2FMfU3s1LHRvvtbMhciqF%2Fz7RsT2al%2BnI8TuylHBbh8Vtccvr0aXvOGxBjSYRfRS%2FBauZMQewxPRTN%2BFUWrJgy26XNQCe7Z2wQQRfaVBHRYnleFDOappbQ256qUHJRQNxHfQXXdhJXIDxJdOUyV%2F5Jf7sBUzq0HVXcNhlqMtBu2LVWFd%2B5uAGGAcbNg55jemu8m&checksum=152776415484086194be068f412cba5fc1e1e9ac36bc https://www.ebay.com/itm/R12-Refrigerant-12-Virgin-Pure-R-12... >An EPA certificate is required to purchase R12 Refrigerant "OR" a statement saying you are purchasing this for "Resale Only". The "Resale Only" statement can be in the form of an e-mail. Pretty easy for Joe Handyman to buy.
- rdtsc 7y ago
  Yeah I like the strong warning of needing a certification then the "OR just say it's for resale" part. In my case it was in a different (European) country. I think they may be slightly more strict there.

lordnacho 7y ago

Fridge related trick: In certain countries you could get carbon credits for closing down old factories that made old style CFC fridges, because of course those are not great for the environment. So then some wily operators started building new "old factories" that they could get credits for in order to "convert" to new factories. Story was told by a friend of mine in the industry at the time, I don't recall the finer details.

nathancahill 7y ago
There's an initiative in Guatemala where land owners are paid an amount of money every year for each acre of their land that they reforest. Naturally, land owners immediately started clear-cutting virgin rainforest, selling the lumber, and then collecting a payout from the government for planting pine trees that they'll raise for 10 years before they'll cut them down for lumber too.
- yojo 7y ago
  Sounds like another example of the cobra effect: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobra_effect https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobra_effect
  - kebman 7y ago
    That's a really interesting effect! Thank you for making me aware of it! However it should be noted that the reason it backfired, was because people exploited a weakness in the system, so to speak. It could even be that they did something illegal and fraudulent, since the bounties were obviously for animals that weren't bred in captivity, and for wild animals that were properly killed so they wouldn't be able to procreate. Thus the question remains on whether the measures had effective ways of dealing with such fraud, or whether that would make the whole thing more expensive than other measures.
M2Ys4U 7y ago
A scheme in Northern Ireland (colloquially known as "Cash for Ash") was set up where heating properties using renewable fuels (mainly biomass) was subsidised, only the subsidy was priced higher than the cost for fuel causing people to heat empty properties just to claim the subsidy. The whole thing cost almost half a billion pounds. There have been huge allegations of fraud and it even brought down NI's power-sharing executive (~ the regional government) in 2017. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_Heat_Incentive_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_Heat_Incentive_scand...

Waterluvian 7y ago

This is how I feel climate change will be tackled (whether too late or not). It will just become cheaper to go green and being green is just a side effect.

sundvor 7y ago
Yet initiatives like Carbon tax have been shot down (Australia) by big money, putting dangerous delays into the schedule.
- jlarocco 7y ago
  I think carbon taxes are the opposite of what the OP is talking about. Carbon taxes are artificial barriers to using fossil fuels. On the other hand, when technology improves so that electric cars cost less per mile than gasoline cars, people won't necessarily buy them to be green, they'll buy them because they're a cheaper form of transportation that happens to be greener. Same with wind and solar power. When a solar farm on 10 acres of land can produce more energy than a coal plant on the same 10 acres, then power companies will build them instead of coal - not to be "green", but to make more money.
  - sundvor 7y ago
    Fair point, and an important one! As we're running out of time we ideally need both to happen, but it's good that green tech is becoming increasingly more financially viable. As a little gem, just about all reports from the SA Tesla battery installation make for simply fantastic reading.
    - kebman 7y ago
      Cars are a red herring. Even gasoline and diesel car aren't really contributing that much to world pollution compared to the real culprits, such as ocean liners and huge cargo ships. These ships alone pollute more than all the cars on Earth. What do you think about going after the things that are actually harmful, instead of following a red herring? I mean, sure, cars should of course be dealt with also, but if you really want to lower carbon emissions fast, then shouldn't we go for the big fish first?

userbinator 7y ago

I find the CFC situation to be rather interesting because it not only made it illegal to intentionally release them into the atmosphere (which would, if anything, just cause people to release them from things like old fridges and ACs even more frequently so as not to be caught with the "prohibited substance"), but by stopping production and keeping it legal to continue to use, created a market for recovering/reselling/reusing that helps to keep them out of the atmosphere. It's the difference between saying "it's bad for the environment so don't release it", and "it's rare and valuable so don't let it escape, but recover, resell, and reuse" --- not everyone believes in global warming or cares as much about the former, but the latter is a powerful motivation.

toper-centage 7y ago
Can we do that with carbon? It's rare and valuable, let's try to contain it as much as possible! We're basically releasing TONS of what is basically black gold to the sky!!
- adrianN 7y ago
  Unfortunately coal is not rare and not very valuable and pricing in the massive externalities to make it so is "bad for jobs".
  - SturgeonsLaw 7y ago
    If carbon was placed under a cap and trade system, where it had a price, and entities which emit CO2 pay for that privilege, then that externality won't be so external, those who do the most damage pay the highest price, and those who can perform carbon capture and storage can realise a revenue stream.

bigiain 7y ago

> I would imagine that as the price of IPv4 addresses crosses some threshold, people will just start going to IPv6. Instead we see "carrier grade NAT" and I end up with IP addresses like 10.X.X.X on some of my cellular devices... 'If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.' -- Henry Ford

subway 7y ago
A mix of the two seems more likely -- ipv6-only to the device, with nat64/dns64 used to handle ipv4 traffic. T-Mobile has been ipv6-only for devices supporting 464xlat since 2014.
zhte415 7y ago
Henry Ford didn't actually say that, though it was in line with his thinking, perhaps. https://hbr.org/2011/08/henry-ford-never-said-the-fast https://hbr.org/2011/08/henry-ford-never-said-the-fast
- yason 7y ago
  The article didn't say Ford didn't say the phrase but that there's no evidence Ford ever said that. So, the truth is (as with many historical things) that no one really knows the truth.
  - zhte415 7y ago
    Stackexchange already did that line of thinking (and cite this article). Enlightening comments. https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/37637/did-henry-ford-say-if-i-had-asked-people-what-they-wanted-they-would-have-said https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/37637/did-henry...