Congress Slipped Important Climate Legislation Passed You
Possibly one of the most significant climate issues pertaining to the built environment was addressed during the final days of the Trump administration. Yes, you read that correctly. It’s been a weird last few years and in accordance with that strangeness, Congress managed to quietly slip into the recent pandemic relief bill one of the most important pieces of climate-focused legislation in at least the last 4 years, signed into law by former president Donald Trump. A nice, albeit odd, overture to the Biden administration announcement that the US will rejoin the Paris climate agreement, wouldn’t you say? So while you waited for your $600 check, this new law began to turn the wheels of regulatory change for a good swath of the manufacturing industry and will no doubt impact the AEC industry as well.
But what exactly got passed?
A hydrofluorocarbon molecule
Without actually signing on the the Kigali agreement itself, the US has passed what’s called The American Innovation and Manufacturing Act of 2020, that will bring the US inline with other countries to phase out HFCs (not high fructose corn syrup, as the acronym might suggest, but rather hydrofluorocarbons). These are super greenhouse gases, manufactured for use in refrigeration, air conditioning, foam blowing, aerosols, fire protection and solvents. HFCs, unlike most other greenhouse gases, are not waste products, but are intentionally produced. HFCs were originally developed as alternatives to ozone depleting substances, but as our technological capacities have grown, they are being phased-out across the planet under the Montreal Protocol. Unfortunately, HFCs have a global warming potential 1000 to 3000 times that of CO2, and their use has increased from almost nothing in 1990 to 1,100 million tonnes of CO2e in 2010. HFC emissions (excluding HFC-23 by-product) currently account for around 1% of global greenhouse gas emissions and as much as 3% in many developed countries.
The massive 5,593-page document addressing these HFCs will see the US mirroring the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol which requires developed countries to achieve an 85% cut from the baseline by 2036. This is an important and long-awaited move by many in the building industry and was underscored previously in the book Drawdown, a work that has become something of a seminal text for facing the climate crisis and finding solutions for the most pressing issues. The 2018 book by a coalition of scientists and policy experts at the nonprofit Project Drawdown 2020 ranked the top one hundred climate change solutions by level of impact, and humanity's use of the refrigerants HCFC and HFC is the top of the list, the most impactful solution. These flourinated chemicals are powerful greenhouse gases and the Kigali agreement terms are critical for their phase-out, management and disposal to make sure they don't end up in our atmosphere.
The design decisions we make make have significant impacts on the volumes and types of refrigerants necessary to condition a building. Adopting design strategies that reduce the need for extremely long line lengths from an indoor air handler to an outdoor compressor, for example, can go a long way to reduce the potential for large volumes refrigerant leaks through the course of the equipment’s lifetime. It’s also true that having conversations with clients to move toward hydronic systems can be extremely productive, given that that these systems leverage heat exchange via air to water heat pumps that dramatically reduce the total volume of refrigerant in the system (entirely contained in the outdoor unit) and reduces the potentiality for leaks into the atmosphere.
Refrigerants may not always make the headlines but they are big news for those who are paying attention. They may sound boring, but our work on buildings directly impacts one of the most potent greenhouse gasses in existence. That’s far from boring and it’s important that we use this knowledge to make more informed and beneficial decisions in our work. For more on refrigerants and their use in homes and buildings, including a new water heater that uses CO2 as a refrigerant you can listen to our podcast episode on the topic, or go direct to this analysis of the Kigali agreement for more details.
