Opportunities and Applications for Hydrocarbons in the Refrigeration Sector

This paper was presented at the F Gas/ODS Stakeholders' Meeting Sustainable Development & Regulation Directorate of the UK Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform on 16 January 2009.

The paper maintains that the halocarbon using sectors will be unable to make a proportionate contribution to the UK Government announcement regarding an 80% cut in greenhouse gas emissions from leakage reduction alone. Energy efficiency and GWP need also be addressed and given that any success in leakage reduction will mean that refrigerants will stay banked for longer, the 2011 F gas review is not too soon to start to consider emissions from the refrigerant bank in 2050. As a starting point this paper calls DEFRA and BERR to persuade the UK Government to implement its HFC policy and stop using HFCs in government buildings and on high profile projects such as the London Underground and the 2012 Olympics.