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Well done! I took the 608 Type 1 exam (online open book) but never went beyond that. Venting refrigerant is illegal in most of the world but it's almost imposs

Well done! I took the 608 Type 1 exam (online open book) but never went beyond that. Venting refrigerant is illegal in most of the world but it's almost impossible to enforce and compliance is typically quite low (good data is, as you can imagine, difficult to find). CARB in California now requires owners of large refrigeration systems (>250 lb of charge IIRC) to report all refrigerant recharge to the state so at least there's some efforts underway.

kube-system 4y ago
The best data for compliance is to walk into any tool store that sells AC vacuum pumps and try to find a recovery machine on the shelf.
- bluGill 4y ago
  That is something that has bugged me. I have a leak in my car's AC. I have injected the dye, found where the leak is. All I have left is to open the system and replace some old seals, but I can't do that right as the equipment isn't available. So I'm stuck venting to the air as it is the only thing I can do. (I could of course take it in, but some combination of cheap and doing my own maintenance means I don't) Note that the vacuum pump is often a free rental from the auto parts store, I don't know why they can't/don't rent the recovery equipment.
  - Aloha 4y ago
    Most shops will evacuate the system and remove the refrigerant for a small fee.
    - CaptainSandwich 4y ago
      Seconded. I found a local mechanic and it cost very little to have them remove the existing refrigerant. They also kept track of the amount removed (which ended up being very little) and offered to put it back in after the leak was fixed.
  - tehwebguy 4y ago
    Try taking it to an AC shop & pay for a 2-part deal: evacuate it now, then fill it back up in a few days. When you put it back together you can pull a vacuum on it, close it off and make sure it stays that way overnight. But you may still want to have a professional shop test with higher precision than whatever gauges you use.
- bloomingeek 4y ago
  You're correct, however most aren't going to pay the big cost to do that. A better way is to be able to either borrow a recovery unit or rent it. The other problem is training someone how to use the unit and then know what to do with the freon after recovery. Until it's made cheap and easy to recover, venting will continue to happen.
jjoonathan 4y ago
Satellite surveillance is going through a capability explosion at the moment, I wouldn't be surprised if it could spot venting in the present or near future.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- empyrrhicist 4y ago
  Honestly, aggressive expansion of remote sensing is the only realistic way for humanity to coordinate on climate at all. There are too many opportunities to defect in the prisoner's dilemma otherwise.
- exp1orer 4y ago
  Good idea! I looked into this when I first started thinking about the problem. MethaneSAT is launching this year, so I thought maybe we could do the same for refrigerants. Unfortunately I don't think it would work: 1. Methane is 1900 ppb in the atmosphere[1], refrigerants overall are ~12.5 ppb -- so a lot less out there to detect. 2. I think methane leaks tend to be from single, continuing, large point sources -- coal mines, oil wells -- whereas refrigerants are usually from these distributed small point sources which happen once. So by the time you detect it it's too late to intervene. [1] https://www.noaa.gov/news-release/increase-in-atmospheric-methane-set-another-record-during-2021 https://www.noaa.gov/news-release/increase-in-atmospheric-me...
ericpauley 4y ago
Regarding additionality: does this mean that, for purposes of the offset, you’re trusting that the technicians you train wouldn’t have properly recovered the refridgerant anyway? Do you have some rough statistics to suggest this? There’s also the issue of self-selection: the techs that work with you are probably more likely than the general population to be properly reclaiming already, for instance since the marginal gain from your program is greater for them (same money for no additional work). Have you considered this?
- lovemenot 4y ago
  The company is a start-up. So what if they are picking too-low-hanging fruit initially? As long as their process can in principle scale to a point where genuine reductions are possible. And they do actually enter a legitimate certification process fairly soon. The certification authority will then become responsible for proper accounting. In the mean time, they are asking for investors' trust without verification. Not ideal, but not unreasonable for a PoC / MVP.
- exp1orer 4y ago
  Good questions, we spend a lot of time thinking about how to ensure the actual additionality of what we're doing. The most important consideration - we pay per kg, and less than the market rate of new gas. So a technician that was recovering gas before to reuse it would be taking a loss if they sold to us and then went out to buy new gas.
  - ericpauley 4y ago
    Gotcha, so technicians that already recover generally reuse now? Thanks for the great explanation!
dijonman2 4y ago
The EPA offers a reward to anyone who reports venting refrigerant. There are some exceptions such as R290 (propane) which you can freely vent. A lot of the newer refrigerants are much safer for the environment, but you are still allowed to recharge and buy older refrigerants. Only the manufacture of new refrigerants is prohibited.

kube-system 4y ago

The best data for compliance is to walk into any tool store that sells AC vacuum pumps and try to find a recovery machine on the shelf.

bluGill 4y ago
That is something that has bugged me. I have a leak in my car's AC. I have injected the dye, found where the leak is. All I have left is to open the system and replace some old seals, but I can't do that right as the equipment isn't available. So I'm stuck venting to the air as it is the only thing I can do. (I could of course take it in, but some combination of cheap and doing my own maintenance means I don't) Note that the vacuum pump is often a free rental from the auto parts store, I don't know why they can't/don't rent the recovery equipment.
- Aloha 4y ago
  Most shops will evacuate the system and remove the refrigerant for a small fee.
  - CaptainSandwich 4y ago
    Seconded. I found a local mechanic and it cost very little to have them remove the existing refrigerant. They also kept track of the amount removed (which ended up being very little) and offered to put it back in after the leak was fixed.
- tehwebguy 4y ago
  Try taking it to an AC shop & pay for a 2-part deal: evacuate it now, then fill it back up in a few days. When you put it back together you can pull a vacuum on it, close it off and make sure it stays that way overnight. But you may still want to have a professional shop test with higher precision than whatever gauges you use.
bloomingeek 4y ago
You're correct, however most aren't going to pay the big cost to do that. A better way is to be able to either borrow a recovery unit or rent it. The other problem is training someone how to use the unit and then know what to do with the freon after recovery. Until it's made cheap and easy to recover, venting will continue to happen.

jjoonathan 4y ago

Satellite surveillance is going through a capability explosion at the moment, I wouldn't be surprised if it could spot venting in the present or near future.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
empyrrhicist 4y ago
Honestly, aggressive expansion of remote sensing is the only realistic way for humanity to coordinate on climate at all. There are too many opportunities to defect in the prisoner's dilemma otherwise.
exp1orer 4y ago
Good idea! I looked into this when I first started thinking about the problem. MethaneSAT is launching this year, so I thought maybe we could do the same for refrigerants. Unfortunately I don't think it would work: 1. Methane is 1900 ppb in the atmosphere[1], refrigerants overall are ~12.5 ppb -- so a lot less out there to detect. 2. I think methane leaks tend to be from single, continuing, large point sources -- coal mines, oil wells -- whereas refrigerants are usually from these distributed small point sources which happen once. So by the time you detect it it's too late to intervene. [1] https://www.noaa.gov/news-release/increase-in-atmospheric-methane-set-another-record-during-2021 https://www.noaa.gov/news-release/increase-in-atmospheric-me...

ericpauley 4y ago

Regarding additionality: does this mean that, for purposes of the offset, you’re trusting that the technicians you train wouldn’t have properly recovered the refridgerant anyway? Do you have some rough statistics to suggest this? There’s also the issue of self-selection: the techs that work with you are probably more likely than the general population to be properly reclaiming already, for instance since the marginal gain from your program is greater for them (same money for no additional work). Have you considered this?

lovemenot 4y ago
The company is a start-up. So what if they are picking too-low-hanging fruit initially? As long as their process can in principle scale to a point where genuine reductions are possible. And they do actually enter a legitimate certification process fairly soon. The certification authority will then become responsible for proper accounting. In the mean time, they are asking for investors' trust without verification. Not ideal, but not unreasonable for a PoC / MVP.
exp1orer 4y ago
Good questions, we spend a lot of time thinking about how to ensure the actual additionality of what we're doing. The most important consideration - we pay per kg, and less than the market rate of new gas. So a technician that was recovering gas before to reuse it would be taking a loss if they sold to us and then went out to buy new gas.
- ericpauley 4y ago
  Gotcha, so technicians that already recover generally reuse now? Thanks for the great explanation!

dijonman2 4y ago

The EPA offers a reward to anyone who reports venting refrigerant. There are some exceptions such as R290 (propane) which you can freely vent. A lot of the newer refrigerants are much safer for the environment, but you are still allowed to recharge and buy older refrigerants. Only the manufacture of new refrigerants is prohibited.