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09-29-2009, 03:04 AM
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Location: Michigan
29,386 posts, read 53,489,193 times
Reputation: 21983
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WASHINGTON – Think propane and butane are just for barbecuing? Think again: The common cooking fuels can also chill your drinks and ice cream with less energy and almost none of the global warming worries of current refrigerants.
Some of the world's largest consumer product companies are promoting freezers and refrigerators in the U.S. that use propane, butane and other coolants that don't trap heat in the atmosphere as much as Freon and other conventional refrigerants.
Ben & Jerry's, GE work on greener freezers for US - Yahoo! News (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090927/ap_on_re_us/us_green_refrigerators - broken link)
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09-29-2009, 09:24 AM
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Location: I think my user name clarifies that.
8,292 posts, read 25,687,852 times
Reputation: 3913
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Makes for great advertising for Ben & Jerry's.
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09-29-2009, 10:10 AM
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22,346 posts, read 65,712,007 times
Reputation: 44926
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FWIW, Britain has had a rash of butane refrigerant refrigerators bursting into flames. Baked Alaska anyone?
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09-29-2009, 12:43 PM
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Location: I think my user name clarifies that.
8,292 posts, read 25,687,852 times
Reputation: 3913
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Quote:
Originally Posted by harry chickpea
FWIW, Britain has had a rash of butane refrigerant refrigerators bursting into flames. Baked Alaska anyone?
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That's too bad, really - and on multiple levels.
I'm all for doing everything as efficiently as possible. In fact, I'm a little surprised that more big stores don't intentionally use the heat created by coolers for heating purposes. |
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09-29-2009, 07:28 PM
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22,346 posts, read 65,712,007 times
Reputation: 44926
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Oh my. Efficiency. Pick up a copy of an Audels refrigeration book to see the efficiencies of the various refrigerants, based on the temperature ranges. Some of the stuff is enough to make my head spin.
FWIW, propane as an emergency refrigerant in an auto AC is, IIRC, pretty decent.
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09-30-2009, 05:01 AM
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259 posts, read 674,351 times
Reputation: 162
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Omaha Rocks
That's too bad, really - and on multiple levels.
I'm all for doing everything as efficiently as possible. In fact, I'm a little surprised that more big stores don't intentionally use the heat created by coolers for heating purposes.
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They do and have been for many years. Heat reclaim is used to heat water and of course the sales floor when it's cold outside. |
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09-30-2009, 05:04 AM
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259 posts, read 674,351 times
Reputation: 162
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Quote:
Originally Posted by harry chickpea
Oh my. Efficiency. Pick up a copy of an Audels refrigeration book to see the efficiencies of the various refrigerants, based on the temperature ranges. Some of the stuff is enough to make my head spin.
FWIW, propane as an emergency refrigerant in an auto AC is, IIRC, pretty decent.
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Using flammable refrigerants in your home and your car is wrong on so many levels. Modern compressors such as the one in your fridge, discharge the refrigerant for safety purposes such as when your house is on fire. Also, if the motor inside the compressor shorts to ground the common terminal connection to the motor blows out ( safety feature ) which will turn your refrigerator into a flame thrower if charged with a flammable refrigerant.
You might as well store gasoline in your fireplace.
Last edited by Tanque Verde; 09-30-2009 at 05:12 AM..
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09-30-2009, 09:13 AM
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Location: Washington DC
5,922 posts, read 7,792,927 times
Reputation: 954
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Propane was a drop in replacement for R-12, but there was no money to be made in that. The argument that there's danger from having a couple of pounds of propane in a car with 25 gallons of gasoline in the back is just silly.
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09-30-2009, 11:04 AM
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259 posts, read 674,351 times
Reputation: 162
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Quote:
Originally Posted by rlchurch
Propane was a drop in replacement for R-12, but there was no money to be made in that. The argument that there's danger from having a couple of pounds of propane in a car with 25 gallons of gasoline in the back is just silly.
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I never made the argument for propane in your car seeings how they use it for fuel as well.
But propane in your home refrigerator exposes you and your family to unnecessary dangers for no reason whatsoever. |
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09-30-2009, 11:11 AM
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Location: Washington DC
5,922 posts, read 7,792,927 times
Reputation: 954
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Tanque Verde
I never made the argument for propane in your car seeings how they use it for fuel as well.
But propane in your home refrigerator exposes you and your family to unnecessary dangers for no reason whatsoever.
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I'm getting fairly old and I've never seen a catastrophic rupture of a refrigeration system. All the failures I've ever seen have been slow leaks. What's more people routinely use propane in their house connected to a lot more inventory than you need for a refrigerator. There's a handful of accidents in a year.
The risk is way overblown. The true story is that the replacement refrigerants have patents on them. |
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