TEWI Analysis: Its Utility, Its Shortcomings, and Its Results

The past decade has been a challenging time for the refrigeration and air conditioning industry worldwide. Provisions of the Montreal Protocol and its amendments require the phaseout of chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) and hydrochlorofluorocarbon (HCFC) compounds that have been used extensively as insulating foam blowing agents and refrigerants in refrigeration systems, heat pumps, and air conditioners. In response, hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) compounds were proposed, developed, and are starting to be used as the primary alternatives to CFCs and HCFCs. However, in 1997 under the Kyoto Protocol, industrialized nations have agreed to roll back emissions of HCFCs, carbon dioxide (CO*), and four other greenhouse gases which threaten to cause excessive global warming. The US. Department of Energy and the Alternative Fluorocarbon Environmental Acceptability Study (AFEAS) jointly sponsored research projects to identify the major applications of CFCs, HCFCs, and HFCs and to examine the impacts of these compounds and the energy use of applications employing these compounds on global warming. The five major uses of fluorocarbons based on sales were automobile air conditioning, supermarket refrigeration, unitary heat pumps and air conditioning, chillers for cooling large office buildings, and household refrigeration. Almost all of the refrigerants used in these applications are global warming gases, and if the refrigerant leaks out of the system during operation, is lost during maintenance or is not recovered when the system is scraped, it contributes to global warming. But, it is also true that the energy consumed by refrigeration and air conditioning systems, in the form of electricity or the direct combustion of fossil fuel, results in the release of CO*, the primary cause of atmospheric global warming