re: MTG championing rollback of HVAC refrigerant restrictions

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Can we do shite that matters

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If this doesn't matter, I don't know what does.

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HVACs going out is financially devastating for most families.

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DemocRats hate lower income people.

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If you had a vessel where the walls completely prevent energy exchange (perfectly insulated to all energy) and it was filled with air if you were to introduce CFCs they would indeed layer out like oil and water once all the energy of the introduction was dissipated. So in that static environment, the CFCs would never reach the farthest point of the vessel from the ground due to the higher weight of the atoms.

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That goes for every molecule. Absent of convection currents generally molecules will stratify based on their molecular weights.

Fore example, hydrogen and helium are so light the earth has a hard time holding on to them. Another example is rain. Water has a molecular weight of 18. Since air is mostly nitrogen air has close to a molecular weight a little greater than 28. 18 is less than 28 so water vapor floats and eventually gets high enough with enough concentration to make clouds and rain.

You are correct about CFCs breaking down ozone. The CFCs in the air breakdown from UV light and the halogens whether chorine or fluorine is released (both are diatomic). Chorine is heavier (35.5) than fluorine (19) but both will reach the ozone layer and react with O3.

FWIW, I think this conversation is edifying because just basic properties of matter that we can glean from a periodic table we learned in high school chemistry tells a lot of the physical story of the world around us.

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The efficiencies of these refrigerants is probably a coin toss in the big picture. The problems come in with:

A: Changes in refrigerants that are incompatible with previous systems.

B: Thinner wall coils for efficiency and cost cutting lends to expensive and too frequent repairs/replacements.

C: Proprietary circuit boards to eek out the last seer rating # and expand on service call frequency and costs.

Stick with R22 refrigerant with thick copper coils and NO circuit boards. In the long run, fewer refrigerant leakage, no toxic circuit board residue, and much less units being dumped. Mandatory 15 year warranty. This will be more environmental friendly by far. Of course this will never happen.

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I found a portable a/c from the 80s in a shed. Damn thing still works and blows out unbelievably cold air. Meanwhile the new window unit in my shed defaults automatically to eco mode.

People don't realize what has been taken from us in the name of bullshite.

As someone that had to spend $1000 to recharge a system because I put a drywall screw in the wrong place I support this effort.

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The real reason is HVAC manufacturers lobbying for the changes under the guise of “green energy” It’s textbook rent - seeking behavior on the part of manufacturers.

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Well they use global warming as the reason. The reason is money. We all know that.

But these appliances do say they are rated for lower global warming potential.


So its what they are using to sell us on it.

This should’ve been done day 1.

Thankfully he already did dishwashers and vehicles but this needs to happen yesterday.

The short supply and sky high prices was a deliberate action by the government, they forced us to buy new units by making the old refrigerants either not available at all or so expensive it costs more than half the price of a new unit just to recharge the system after a leak.

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Your example is using CFC’s. Those haven’t been made or sold this century. R-22 is a HCFC and 410-a is a HFC. Both molecules have a specific gravity greater than air, hence they sink below our air. Even if they are moved by wind or whatever, they still are heavier than air and will remain that way.

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I started with CFCs because that is the start of the whole refrigerants are bad for the ozone issue which you suggest is bullshite. I explained why them being denser than air does not prevent them from getting to the ozone layer, which you suggest is impossible. Here is another thing for you to think about: if gases in the atmosphere layer out by molecular weight, why doesn't the nitrogen in air layer out above oxygen? In fact, you need to thank your lucky stars that atmospheric gases do not layer out on Earth by weight. If they did we would be (not) living in a layer of argon. Argon, being a noble gas and having low chemical reactivity due to its full outer electron shell, would be a very poor gas to use for the respiratory system of lifeforms.

CFCs started the issue, and I showed how they can impact the ozone layer It is pretty simple HS science. HCFCs are also heavier than air but also will sooner or later be swept many miles in the air. They do however, pose less of an issue to the ozone layer. CFCs are remarkably stable molecules which is why they stay intact long enough to get a ride to the stratosphere. HCFCs are less stable and are less likely to make it up to the ozone layer but if they do they have a similar effect since they have the same chlorine and fluorine molecules in them. The reason HCFCs are less bad for the ozone layer is that they contain hydrogen and thus are less stable because they get oxidized by hydroxyl radicals that are present in the troposphere so they don't have to wait for a trip to the ozone layer to get hit with high-energy UV waves to break down like CFCs. So the resulting free chlorine and flourine react with chemicals other than ozone and get locked up in compounds that don't impact the ozone layer.

Heavy molecular weight gases do reach the stratosphere eventually, Earth's atmosphere is a very high-energy system

CFCs will reduce the amount of ozone when they eventually reach the ozone layer.

HCFCs will also reduce the amount of ozone when (if) they get to the ozone layer. They are less of an issue because they are not as stable as CFCs in the lower levels of the atmosphere. So they are not around long enough to catch a ride to the ozone layer. Their impact on the ozone layer is vanishingly small.

The argument for A2L refrigerants is not ozone depletion but GWP instead. A whole different kettle of fish. So the switch away from R410a has nothing to do with the ozone layer.

If you want to argue this or contemplate it you have to go farther than second day chemistry class and realize the molecular weight argument is a non-starter, if it were human life wouldn't exist, at least not in places close to sea level like NOLA, because it would be in an argon atmosphere.

Give up the argument that CFCs and HCFCs don't affect the ozone layer; that is a non-starter. You need to focus on the actual amount of damage done and whether that was/is an issue. That is more complex and requires actual measurement.

Personally, I believe CFCs did cause significant depletion of the ozone layer because it makes perfect chemistry sense, given the catalytic cycle started by the presence of ozone and chlorine. The GWP argument for moving to A2Ls is on far more shaky ground IMO.