One company's quest to find and destroy CFCs, HCFCs, and HFC refrigerants - and methane-leaking wells - as fast as possible. These gases superheat the atmosphere much more than an equivalent amount of carbon dioxide (CO2).
Tradewater: tradewater.us/offsetnow/
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Refrigerant animation courtesy of / @geniusengineering
Information sources:
CA.Gov High GWP Fact Sheet ww2.arb.ca.gov/resources/docu...
EPA Refrigerant Phaseout www.epa.gov/ods-phaseout#:~:t....
EPA HCF Phasedown www.epa.gov/climate-hfcs-redu....
Difference between refrigerants www.coldroommaster.com/cold-r...
EPA: How to Properly dispose of refrigerants www.epa.gov/sites/default/fil...
EPA: Understanding Global Warming Potential www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/unde....
International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) AR6 Report www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/do...
0:00 The Problem
1:00 Acquiring Refrigerants
3:40 The Destruction Process
4:49 Founding Tradewater
5:30 A Climate-First Mission
6:35 Going International
8:26 Capping Methane Leaks
Script:
The secret sauce inside this heat pump, your fridge, and air conditioner, is the refrigerant that circulates inside, expanding and compressing to move heat from one space to another.
But if this chemical escapes it’s a problem because it heats the atmosphere much more than an equivalent amount of Carbon Dioxide. [show how many times CO2]
So, when an appliance reaches the end of its life cycle, the refrigerant is - hopefully - recovered into canisters that often get left around to degrade and leak.
[Show clip from Honduras of canister leaking]
Few people understand how big of a disaster it is when this happens.
Luckily, the most potent warming gasses are no longer produced or are being phased down, but because there’s no easy way to properly get rid of it, there are probably many million appliances and tanks full of it still out there.
Fortunately, one company has made it their mission to hunt down these canisters - these climate grenades - and safely disarm them.
To learn more, I visited them in Chicago.
“There’s no regulatory obligation to destroy this stuff, and that’s a role we can come in and help fill.”
Valeria leads a team that travels across America finding refrigerants and paying people cash for them. She took me along on a quick local pick-up.
We didn’t want to freak the customer out by filming them in front of their house, but back at the warehouse, I saw the goods.
Inside, I found Moises working on the next step.
How refrigerant gases are destroyed.
The team stores the refrigerants in these larger tanks until they’ve aggregated enough to fill this beast.
That happens at a facility like this one that superheats the refrigerant.
“Rotary kiln incineration…we are literally burning this gas to break down the chemical bonds and rendering the component parts essentially inert.”
When I sat down with Tradewater’s founders at Jackson Park, I learned this work started on a much smaller scale.
[Explaining carbon offset credit, California Cap and Trade, and how the company makes money]
[Gabe discusses how refrigerants are usually collected and destroyed, and how TW’s climate-first approach is different]
[Tim discussing growth]
With its US operation set up and scaling quickly, the team is working internationally to make an even bigger impact, but that comes with some serious challenges.
[Gabe on navigating each country’s different systems]
Back in the US, Tradewater has begun partnering with state governments to stop another dangerous gas from escaping: the methane spewing out of millions of uncapped, orphaned oil and gas wells, emissions that have a warming potential 81.2 times that of CO2 over a 20 year period.
The team is leveraging the skills of former oil and gas industry workers who get this specialized job done right.
[These gasses cannot be sequestered once released]
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