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Refrigerants and Climate Change

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One big thing that the US is doing to reduce climate emissions is replacing the refrigerants that are major greenhouse gases (HFC) with HFO-1234y and so called natural refrigerants like propane and carbon dioxide. Many new cars use HFO-1234y in their air conditioner, it’s a big part of complying for with the carbon emissions standards implemented for cars during the Obama administration.

But outside of the HVAC and automotive engineering industry, virtually nobody knows this. Yet it’s not particularly controversial and as such the politicians don’t talk about it. It doesn’t require any action by consumers – a refrigerator that cools using CFC, HCFC, HFC or HFO-1234y works exactly the same – just some refrigerants destroy the ozone layer, others cause climate change. And others like HFO-1234y, Carbon Dioxide or Propane have a modest to almost zero impact on the climate when emitted into the atmosphere.

I often wonder if low cost thyristors existed in the first half of the century to produce buck and boost converters if the electrical grid would use direct current.

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I often wonder if low cost thyristors existed in the first half of the century to produce buck and boost converters if the electrical grid would use direct current. High voltage DC doesn’t suffer from impedance, although it is more dangerous to touch as there is no zero point for seized muscle of a human to release themselves from it. High voltage DC is also much more difficult to break with a mechanical switch, due to a lack of zero point to prevent arcing, which is why they usually use thyristors rather than mechanical switches to break DC current.

Verrazano Narrows Bridge

What Is Benzene? | Chemical Safety Facts

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What Is Benzene? | Chemical Safety Facts

As a building block chemical, benzene is reacted with other chemicals to produce a variety of other chemistries, materials and, ultimately, consumer goods.

Benzene is used to make other chemicals like ethylbenzene, cumene and cyclohexane, which are then reacted and used in the manufacture of a variety of materials and plastics such as polystyrene, ABS, and nylon. There can be many steps in the process that starts with the benzene molecule and ends with a completed material or consumer product. For example, benzene is a building block used to make ethylbenzene, which is then used to make styrene, which is used to make polystyrene. The end material, polystyrene, is a completely different material chemically than benzene.

For consumer products where benzene is used as a building block or intermediate, the benzene is typically fully reacted in a closed system, with little to no benzene remaining in the finished consumer product.

Benzene also is used to make some types of lubricants, rubbers, dyes, detergents, drugs, explosives and pesticides.