In the 1990s, the advocacy nonprofit Greenpeace invented GreenFreeze as a climate-friendly solution. General Electric estimated its magnetocaloric refrigerators could be available by 2019.īut a different kind of cleaner refrigerator is already on the market. The appliance company Haier advertised a magnetocaloric cooler for residential use, but it is not yet available for purchase. These coolers offer electricity savings of 20-30 percent over conventional systems, according to the Department of Energy. Then, they pump low-impact liquids around the alloy, which cools the liquid so it can cool the fridge interior. These fridges cool by exposing an alloy to a magnetic field-certain alloys will heat up or cool down when this happens. Magnetocaloric coolers are based on the thermodynamic effect, which shows that “the temperature of a material can be changed by exposing it to a magnetic field,” explained journalist Michael Irving in New Atlas. Scientists are working on better alternatives. This could bring about yet another global ecological disaster,” he says. “When HFOs decompose in the atmosphere, they form trifluoroacetic acid, which is a toxin that accumulates in wetlands. Subsequently, the chemical industry began to market hydrofluoroolefins (HFOs) as an Earth-friendly alternative to other gases, but they, too have harmful effects, says Janos Maté, a senior policy advisor at Greenpeace. Under the 2016 Kigali amendment to the Montreal Protocol, nations began to phase out HFCs. New technologies for refrigeration have huge potential to help reverse the climate crisis. These freezers have a much smaller climate impact than conventional freezers. Unlike a washing machine, another high-energy appliance, people run their refrigerators 24/7, and as the world warms, more and more people rely on air conditioning to keep spaces bearable.īen and Jerry’s reduced its climate impact by bringing the first hydrocarbon freezers to the US in 2008. Eventually, 99 percent of refrigerant chemicals make it into the atmosphere.Įlectricity is also a problem of refrigeration appliances. But that’s almost impossible to enforce when thousands of fridges arrive at landfills across the country every day. Under the Clean Air Act, it’s illegal to “cut the line” and release potent refrigerants into the air. Though they helped repair that hole, the replacement chemicals, hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), are 1,000 to 9,000 times more potent than CO2 in terms of their climate impact, and they are still in prominent use today. The 1987 Montreal Protocol, an international, legally binding agreement, phased out two types of harmful refrigerants in wide use prior to that year: chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs), which were responsible for tearing a hole in the ozone layer. The major issue with refrigeration (including both refrigerators and air conditioning) is the ozone-harming chemicals and greenhouse-gas Instead of focusing on the need to phase out harmful refrigerants, I wanted to see how systems currently in development could help the world reach goals to reverse climate change. Even Hawken admitted that refrigeration management was “less sexy” than what he’d hoped would top the list.īut after reading Drawdown, I had to know more about the book and nonprofit’s number-one climate solution. We thought the top solution would be something environmentalists talked about more-like increasing wind and solar power or protecting forests. Refrigerant management is the most impactful step to solve the climate crisis, as many people on our staff were surprised to learn when we featured Paul Hawken’s new book Drawdown in our winter issue.