Cooling off global warming potential

The world's automotive air conditioning (A/C) engineers had hoped for a consensus on a new low global-warming-potential (GWP) refrigerant at the SAE Alternate Refrigerant Systems Symposium in Phoenix, AZ, this summer. It did not happen, and the situation may have worsened with a subsequent announcement by the VDA, the German auto manufacturers association, that it was suspending evaluation of refrigerant blends proposed by chemical companies. The European Community regulation date for phaseout of R-134a-January 1, 2011 for new models-has not changed. Even if a refrigerant were picked, developed, tested, and integrated, production parts by 2011 would be difficult. And timing to build factories for refrigerant blend chemicals also would be tight.

The industry is in disagreement. VDA said it would focus on solving problems with systems using carbon dioxide (also called R-744) as a refrigerant. However, one VDA member, BMW, despite acceding to this decision, had admitted in Phoenix that it faces major problems. And other makers who belong to the pan-European automobile manufacturers association, ACEA, also are reportedly divided. Fiat, for example, is looking at blends, even the mildly flammable R-152a, ruling none out, including CO₂, with which it has reported significant problems.