Guest essay by Eric Worrall
According to Time Magazine, forcing everyone to switch from CFC refrigerants to more climate friendly refrigerants is a job creation opportunity.
Here’s the One Climate Change Deal the Trump Administration Might Back
February 6, 2018
…
The Trump Administration has hesitated to throw out a key deal reached in 2016 to phase out a pollutant found in air conditioners that is a factor in climate change, in part because American companies think it could be a huge business opportunity for them.
An Administration official declined to say Monday whether Trump would send the Kigali amendment to the Senate for ratification.
“The president wants to make sure that any international environment agreement does not harm U.S. workers,” said George David Banks, White House international energy and environment advisor, at an event at the Hudson Institute on Monday. “If the president does decide to support Kigali … it will largely be because he wants to create U.S. jobs.”
…
“We want to be the global leaders like we alway have been in this industry,” says Stephen Yurek, CEO of the Air-Conditioning, Heating and Refrigeration Institute. “Will they pick our products and technology or will they pick those developed by the other countries that have ratified the amendment?”
Banks says the Trump Administration still has questions.
“We understand that there is broad industry support,” said Banks. “But first we need to know the economic impact.”
Read more: http://time.com/5134208/kigali-amendment-donald-trump-climate-change/
I’m frequently shocked at the total ignorance of economics displayed by today’s journalists.
If Kigali amendment compliant air conditioners are such a big international export opportunity, why does US manufacture of Kigali compliant air conditioners for export have to be subsidised by forcing everyone in the USA switch to the new standard? Why can’t air conditioner manufacturers fund this “opportunity” using their own capital?
The silliest part of the Time article is the claim that this forced switch is a job creation opportunity. Long ago, famous economist Frédéric Bastiat invented the parable of the broken window to explain what is wrong with the belief that imposing costs stimulates economic activity.
Have you ever witnessed the anger of the good shopkeeper, James Goodfellow, when his careless son has happened to break a pane of glass? If you have been present at such a scene, you will most assuredly bear witness to the fact that every one of the spectators, were there even thirty of them, by common consent apparently, offered the unfortunate owner this invariable consolation – “It is an ill wind that blows nobody good. Everybody must live, and what would become of the glaziers if panes of glass were never broken?”
Now, this form of condolence contains an entire theory, which it will be well to show up in this simple case, seeing that it is precisely the same as that which, unhappily, regulates the greater part of our economical institutions.
Suppose it cost six francs to repair the damage, and you say that the accident brings six francs to the glazier’s trade – that it encourages that trade to the amount of six francs – I grant it; I have not a word to say against it; you reason justly. The glazier comes, performs his task, receives his six francs, rubs his hands, and, in his heart, blesses the careless child. All this is that which is seen.
But if, on the other hand, you come to the conclusion, as is too often the case, that it is a good thing to break windows, that it causes money to circulate, and that the encouragement of industry in general will be the result of it, you will oblige me to call out, “Stop there! Your theory is confined to that which is seen; it takes no account of that which is not seen.”
It is not seen that as our shopkeeper has spent six francs upon one thing, he cannot spend them upon another. It is not seen that if he had not had a window to replace, he would, perhaps, have replaced his old shoes, or added another book to his library. In short, he would have employed his six francs in some way, which this accident has prevented.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window
A forced switch from a perfectly adequate existing standard to a new standard which at best delivers the same facility is not a job opportunity, it is a pointless government imposed cost – the kind of pointless bureaucratic cost President Trump pledged to eliminate.
Every job created in the air conditioner industry by imposing the Kigali Amendment would be matched by jobs lost in other industries, businesses which would be forced to reduce other expenditures to comply with this useless new standard.
Worse, countries which don’t bother to enforce the new standards or whose implementation of the new standard is delayed (USA of course agreed to be an early adopter of this expensive new standard) will obtain an economic advantage over US companies forced to pay for a product upgrade they neither need or want.
Lets hope President Trump does the sensible thing and tosses out this useless climate standard. US manufacturers who want to produce air conditioning units which comply with the Kigali amendment for export should be free to do so – but it is utterly unreasonable to expect everyone else in America to pay for their export venture, through forced purchases of an upgrade which delivers no value to the purchaser, the cost of which would ultimately be passed on to ordinary Americans.
Just think of all of the job opportunities that would result if antifa were subsidized to run around breaking windows and torching cars/buildings.
With apologies to Eric, the ideas put forward by Eric Worral are themselves fallacies.
The switch from current refrigerants to less-environmentally harmful refrigerants is a win-win switch. There is no government expense, there is no “subsidis[ing] by forcing everyone in the USA switch to the new standard”, other than manufacturers no one will be forced to switch to anything, no business will be forced “to reduce other expenditures to comply”.
None of the ill effects of shifting refrigerants took place during the last couple of refrigerant shifts — one can still buy a small window air conditioners for a hundred bucks — the change in refrigerants takes place at the manufacturing step — and the costs of re-tooling are made up in additional sales as the public upgrades to the newer, more efficient, less harmful units. Of course, not everyone upgrades at once, people wait til their older unit wears out, breaks down, or they decide to buy a split system a/c unit to replace that clunky window unit.
Since there is concern about what happens to the old refrigerants in older systems, as they are replaced in the normal cycle of wearing out — there is the already existing small cost of capturing the refrigerant gases in disposed units — this requirement already exists for CFCs/HFCs already in use.
As has been discussed here at WUWT before, the new replacement refrigerants are cheaper — less expensive — then the ones being replaced. For the newer household refrigerators, the cost of the refrigerant (basically propane or butane) approaches zero per unit. The amount of propane refrigerant used in a modern frig, in total, is about the amount wasted every time the propane man fills my 20-lb bbq tank and releases the few ounces of propane left over in the nozzle into the air.
Of course, the idea that this shift will have much, if any, effect on the climate is dubious at best — but there are other good and valid reasons not to be unnecessarily releasing CFCs and HFCs into the atmosphere.
So the cost of replacing an otherwise working unit because the refrigerant it uses is no longer legal doesn’t exist?
The cost of re-tooling your plant to make refrigerators, AC’s etc, that use a different coolant doesn’t exist?
The laws and regulations for refrigerants do not require that older units be immediately replaced. They require NEW units to have the new replacement refrigerants.
Similarly, manufacturing of the new refrigerant units are on a stipulated phase-out-phase-in schedule. The re-tooling costs from the last round of changes — which usually involved minor changes such as altered pressure regulators, different lubricants — are no more than those involved in developing new models of existing units and often are re-captured in the buying rush by consumers and the building industry to have the latest models.
So, yeah, little additional cost to anyone.
The HVAC/Refrigeration industry has been working with changing refrigerants for some time now, and these changes are an expected part of the business cycle. It doesn’t much matter if the changes are from the Kagali Agreement or mandated by the EPA — the industry knows they are coming and have planned for it already.
We need to have an immediate ban on the dangerous pollutant, di-hydrogen monoxide vapor, millions of tons of which are spewed into the atmosphere each year, much of it by agriculture. We need to take a stand against this deadly, planet-destroying chemical immediately. The Montreal Protocol’s success is proof that it can be done.
LOL, the Greens support this to a yuge extent.
There has been a report in the UK that the ozone layer has thinned in the tropics. It totally failed to explain why the ban on CFC’s was only good for the poles and not globally.
Job creation is right– to the extent this lobbying scam dug deep into my household budget to pay for unproven equipment standards and now a de facto requirement to have ongoing HVAC warranty policies on the less reliable, higher-pressured HVAC equipment. The advocacy-lobbyist line was that this would only cost pennies to switch over but like all things over-promised by greeens the actual cost is 2x more and possibly 3x more. Technicians in the industry say the design and manufacturing was not there to do the change over and that the higher pressure systems break more often and require ongoing warranty coverage to maintain them. Thanks for nothing scumbags.
“I’m frequently shocked at the total ignorance of economics displayed by today’s journalists.”
Don’t be. Even Obama’s advisor Ben Rhodes knew:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2016/05/05/white-house-official-on-some-reporters-overseas-expertise-they-literally-know-nothing/?utm_term=.6b8d0f1826b8
“All these newspapers used to have foreign bureaus. Now they don’t. They call us to explain to them what’s happening in Moscow and Cairo. Most of the outlets are reporting on world events from Washington. The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old, and their only reporting experience consists of being around political campaigns. That’s a sea change. They literally know nothing.”
Hurricane Harvey created job opportunities in Houston as well. So I guess by the logic of the article, we should wish for hurricanes. Beware Bastiat’s broken window.
Good point.
Today’s Rockport Pilot front page headline was Citgo giving Habitat for Humanity 1.4 million for 22 houses. Because the interest free mortgages for this group are relatively small the impact of high property taxes is more important to them and therefore help is needed. Hurricane damage to the tax base should be large because of the reliance on tourism. Also there is government money coming in, even before one of these for resiliency. http://missionaransas.org/resilient-texas-planning-sea-level-rise.
And then there is always war.
When R12 was replaced with R134 Dow’s patent on R12 had run out and it was selling for as low as .99 cents per can. The R134 initially came on sale at $12 to $14 per can. If I heard that today’s HFCs had to be replaced with something new I would ask if the patent had run out.
+10
….and what the replacement equipment costs were going to be
Wasn’t it an expiring DuPont’s patent? How very fortunate for them that exactly at the moment anybody was free to manufacture Freon, it got banned worldwide. Long live the United Nations.
This again?!? The patent ran out about 50 years ago. Stop with the agitprop, already.
There seems to be a lot of confusion in this debate. The United States banned the use of CFC (chloro-fluorocarbons) refrigerants decades ago, because escaped refrigerant eventually rose into the stratosphere, and chlorine catalyzed the breakdown of ozone to ordinary oxygen, which would allow more damaging ultraviolet rays to reach the earth’s surface, which could cause skin cancer or genetic mutations.
In the USA, CFC refrigerants were replaced by HFC (hydro-fluorocarbons) refrigerants, which do not contain chlorine, so they would have less effect on the ozone layer. Neither family of refrigerants has much “greenhouse gas” effects, as their concentrations in the atmosphere are far too low to absorb much IR radiation.
It would be a mistake to try to ban HFC refrigerants in favor of flammable refrigerants such as propane or isobutane. Such refrigerants are commonly used in the oil and gas industry (they are present in natural gas), but due to their flammability, large industrial compressors and refrigeration systems are subject to regular maintenance and leak-checks for purposes of worker safety. But such flammable refrigerants would be too dangerous for use in home refrigerators, when most homeowners don’t check their refrigerators for leaks unless the refrigerator doesn’t keep the food cold, and a propane leak and a spark could cause a fire long before the homeowner detected a leak.
Another alternative refrigerant used in industry is anhydrous ammonia. Leaks from outdoor compressors can be easily detected by the odor of ammonia, but an ammonia leak from a home refrigerator in a poorly ventilated kitchen could cause concentrations to reach a toxic hazard. For example, in a typical kitchen 10 ft x 12 ft with an 8-ft ceiling (about 27 cubic meters), a leak of only 4 grams of ammonia could reach the toxic threshold of 200 ppm in air.
“Global warming” is a very minor issue when dealing with refrigerants. The debate should be centered on the effects on the ozone layer and the danger of using flammable refrigerants.
“Global Warming” is a non-issue period, since it is natural forces that cause it and it has nothing to do with what we use for fuel, refrigerants, or anything else. Human beings just have a grossly over-inflated sense of self importance.
A Senator/Representative new groundbreaking economic plan revealed!,
Break a million windows and slash a million tires a day will create a million new jobs to replace the losses with new windows and tires.
How come they never make such a proposal?
Snicker…..
All these green ‘job creation’ schemes seem to miss one important point. The money to pay for these jobs has to come from somewhere. Like renewables, yeah great, loadsa jobs! That’s because it’s so inefficient, and why it costs so much more!
Logic much?
I live in Arizona I have replace two AC/heating units each time I was told how much more efficient the new units would be each time the new units cost more money to operate, more efficient? No at all, they both were less efficient, of course when you use a inferior product as a refrigeration cycle it is going to cost more money.
Jobs are a cost, not a benefit.
It is worth mentioning that this method of market manipulation by the government often becomes a repeat offender. An easy example would be the “environmentally” friendly gas can spouts here in CA. The government mandates a new version every few years it seems because the previously mandated ones are never good enough. The result is that the consumer not only has to pay for a new gas can and spout that is can specific each time a spout breaks but the functionality of the spout is often terrible because ease of use is not considered important by law makers as compared to “saving the environment”. The fact that this lack of functionality often causes worse spills is never even considered. Somehow liberal “socialism” doesn’t include making product parts universal so that where possible the consumer can benefit from products that are easier to fix and get parts for.