Show Opener: You are listening to Cool Air Hot Takes.
Charles Jelen: Welcome to Cool Air Hot Takes where every two weeks we talk about anything and everything from the world of Buildings, HVAC and Energy.
Dan Gentry: If you've been listening to the first two episodes, then you know exactly what we're all about. But if this is your first time, we're happy to have you and welcome to the show.
Charles Jelen: We are your hosts. I'm Charlie Gellan. This guy next to me is Dan Gentry, and we're both engineers and we've both been in and around the commercial building systems for better part of two decades.
Dan Gentry: Which means we've got some pretty hot takes. Speaking of Charlie, oh, what is your hot take this week?
Charles Jelen: No banter, no friendly banter today.
Oh, getting right to it. I like it. We got work to do. Okay. I came with a hot take today. I had this one planned out, and it has nothing to do with our work. It has nothing to do with anything in the world of buildings. Hmm. So we're having fun, but I'm, I am, uh, I'm, I'm very passionate about it. Um, pop in culture.
Pop in culture. Okay. That's a hot take. I think the world needs more popin culture. I think we need to grow the percentage of Popin culture out there. So popin culture. So you're living in a community, you got friends all over the place and you just show up, you pop in. You don't have to have an intention of staying for hours.
You don't text, you don't call. Nope. You pop in. You have a drink. As our British producer would say, have a tinny tinny, right? You just hang out for a little bit. Do you have to bring anything when you show up? You absolutely can. It probably enhances the pop in if you bring a little bit. But no, there's no expectation.
You just show up. I grew up in pop in culture. We, uncle Jimmy, aunt Kayla, we'd pop into their house all the time. Cousins, friends, like we grew up with it. I still love it. The problem I have now is my wife is not a big fan of pop culture. Oh no. Okay. Nope. She needs the 15, 20 minute, half hour warning. Gotta prepare, gotta, you know, do whatever, pull herself together, uh, get the, get the house cleaned up a little bit.
But I feel like that's the part, if you've fully adopted the pop culture. You know, to expect dishes in the sink, ketchup on the counter, whatever, floor's, not vacuumed floor's, definitely not vacuumed.
Dan Gentry: Well, another thing too, if you like the Popin culture, you have to be prepared for a pop in. Yeah. Meaning you need to have some sort of a cocktail available at all times.
You have at least a beer because you don't want to be empty handed when the popin. Yeah. And some sparkling water for those, for those who don't partake. Yeah. And there you go. You got a hashtag take for today. That's that. I think that's the take. That's the take. That's so good. That's so good.
Charles Jelen: Alright, listener, we got a heck of a show lined up for you.
And this guy next to me is wearing some pit vipers today and he is putting the vibe out. Chief
Dan Gentry: Vibes Officer, is that I believe the, um, nomenclature there.
Charles Jelen: All right. Mr. CVO. Here's what we got lined up for the day.
Dan Gentry: Alright, today we got of course HVAC headlines. We have Ray Riling from Trade water, trade Water's, a company that actually destroys refrigerant.
So we're gonna dig into that and see why people do that. Uh, one of our, uh, segments is gonna be called Refrigerant, which if you kind of understood by the rant part, we're gonna have a little twist on that. That should be pretty fun. And then of course, we're gonna wrap it up. As we always do with the stat of the day.
Stat of the day. Stat of the day.
Charles Jelen: Alright. Here's your HVAC headlines,
Show Opener: HVAC. Headlines your news today.
Charles Jelen: All right, first headline. Unless you've been living under a rock, you've heard about deeps seek. So headline number one, deeps seek ai fallout spreads to manufacturing stocks. Mm. Didn't really know how to attack deeps. Seek on our show here. And I thought this one was interesting because it talks about kind of the ripple effects and the company we work for, Trane Technologies is, is part of this ripple effect.
So. If you have no idea what deeps seek is, we'll, we'll kind of start pretty basic here. So deeps seek is a Chinese based AI large language model. So it'd be similar to chat, GPT, Gemini, something like that. Type in a question and it answers it for you. The reason it's sent such a shock wave is because deeps seek is using.
Far less computational power compared to these other platforms. And the reason that is such a big deal is because China does not have access to generically call 'em advanced microchips from companies like nvidia. These are super high density, high processing chips that we do not export to them. And so if you're following the logic here, there is potentially a way to do these AI large language models.
With a fraction of the data. So if you think about, you still
Dan Gentry: need data centers, right?
Charles Jelen: We still, well, so that's the projection though, right? Is if, if you look out five to 10 years and you think about all the investments that are going into these companies that are building data centers, now all of a sudden like, well, AI needs a hundredth, a 10th of the computing power.
What does that do for the future outlook?
Dan Gentry: So the ripples are still happening.
Charles Jelen: The ripples are still happening. So it started with Nvidia. Nvidia was the big one because they're the ones that are creating these high density, these advanced microchips, they took the single largest day market cap hit at $560 billion.
Hmm,
Dan Gentry: not, not a good day
Charles Jelen: listener. Dan's wearing a pair of Raptor sunglasses and, and that came across. I felt that one. Yeah. Not a good day, but beyond that. Okay. So the ripple effect out is basically to, for everything that goes into a data center. So, uh, electrical component suppliers like te connectivity, generators like Generac.
Cooling equipment like train technologies, switchgear like Eaton. You even can go all the way down or all the way up depending on which way you're looking at this, to the companies that produce electricity. 'cause if you think of this data centers, their big incoming power flow is power, right? It's electricity, data out, power in.
And so even companies like Constellation that own generating assets like nuclear power plants and and natural gas power plants, they're taking a hit. Because of the potential impact that this has.
Dan Gentry: This is pretty crazy.
Charles Jelen: Yeah. Did you ever think an app was gonna like, cause all this records that was not on my bingo card.
No. There you go. Headline number one. All right. What's number two? Number two. This is a good one. Uh, St. Louis man sentenced to 14 months for refrigerant based fraud scheme. 14 months. 14 months in jail. I mean, that's like hard time for a guy like me. It's hard. That's hard time. I
Dan Gentry: mean,
Charles Jelen: wow. This what this gonna do.
So this is from KTTN Local news in St. Louis. So the setup that this guy had going was he was going to make money by buying a bunch of refrigerant in bulk and reselling it to contractors. Totally fine. That's what people do all the time. Okay. He was targeting this market of R 22. So R 22 is a, an older refrigerant that we were using.
It was getting phased out, so the supply was going down. Therefore, the, the demand and the price of it was gonna tail up some, call it the dream fluid. Shared with Tim, and so that was what his business was set up to do, is buy in bulk. The price of R 22 is gonna go up. We're all gonna make money.
Unfortunately, it was a R 22 Ponzi scheme, so he was repaying early investors into the business with money obtained from new investors, all while diverting the funds to his own personal expenses. So in case anybody is thinking they wanna get into a Ponzi scheme around refrigerant, it's already been done.
Dan Gentry: There you go, man. It's funny. Alright, uh, up next we have Ray Riling from Trade Water. He'll be joining us to talk about refrigerants, what it is, why we destroy it, and what is Ray's refrigerant. Don't go anywhere.
Charles Jelen: Hey there, listener. Ever feel like refrigerant management is a puzzle you just can't solve? Well, guess what? Train's got your back.
Dan Gentry: Imagine a world where you don't have to worry about what refrigerant is in your assets and whether or not you're complying with local codes, trains, innovative solutions make it simple, efficient, and stress free.
Whether you're an
Charles Jelen: engineer, contractor or facility manager, Trane's got the tools you need to keep things cool and compliant.
Dan Gentry: So why wait? Head over to trane.com/refrigerant management and discover how you can revolutionize your refrigerant game today.
Charles Jelen: Ray Riling, welcome to this show. Thank you for spending a few minutes with us today. Yeah, it's my pleasure. Thanks for having me, guys. Absolutely. Well, before we get into trade water and you and what you do, we need to give the listener a little bit of background of who you are and who we're who we're talking to today.
And so listener. We have with us a family man. A family man. He has two young kids. He loves camping. He has a small garden, which you and Dan are gonna have to trade some tips about. He started a storage unit business with his college buddies called My Box. He's a New York Yankees fan. We will not hold that against him.
Fair enough. In a former life, he worked in politics, running campaigns in dc, which means he's bilingual English and Washington. Speak. Ladies and gentlemen, Ray Riley.
Ray Rieling: Thank you, Charlie. I think, uh. On the garden since I feel like I'm a little like Thomas Edison, I've discovered a million ways not to run a garden.
Uh, so I'm happy to share those with Dan. What, what's hot right now? What's going in the garden? Well, it's cold here. I'm in Virginia, just outside dc. It's cold and I don't have the fortitude to do cold weather crops, but I'll get some tomato seedlings in probably soon, probably next month, and get those going and move 'em outside once it gets warm here.
There you go. What do you do?
Charles Jelen: You salsa Bloody mary mix.
Ray Rieling: You know what I did? Uh, I did jalapenos last year. My wife really likes spicy margaritas, so I did jalapenos last year to put in spicy margaritas. The tomatoes, I generally just slice up and put on a sandwich.
Charles Jelen: There you go. Okay. Yeah, Dan's got like a, a plethora.
Dan Gentry: He's got a cornucopia of produce coming outta his. I love gardening. I got into, um, sunflowers last year really? And I made sunflower seeds and I am definitely doing that again.
Ray Rieling: Were they hard? How, how was it growing? Sunflowers
Dan Gentry: super easy. Just, um, throw 'em in the ground and they, they grew. If I can do it, I think, uh, that's my kind of
Ray Rieling: gardening.
That's my kind of gardening.
Dan Gentry: Yeah. I had to like, um, cut a couple down 'cause there too many actually took root, so it
Ray Rieling: worked out. That's nice. Even then, you can bring 'em inside and like put 'em on the table or something. There you go. That's perfect. Alright, sunflowers. I'm gonna put that one away. There you go.
That's
Charles Jelen: fun. Alright Ray, the name of the show is Cool Air Hot Takes and the name of the episode is called Refrigerator Rants. I could rant about refrigerant all day. All right. And so we ask every person that comes on the show. And this could be personal life, this could be professional, wherever you want to take it.
What's your hot take? What is your refrigerant for the episode?
Ray Rieling: Okay, refrigerants. So as you know, trade water, we destroy end of life, legacy refrigerants more just hot. Takes a little hot. So I'm gonna put it out there as curious to see what you all's feedback is. My hot take is that we should be destroying HFC refrigerants.
Right now the only refrigerants that we destroy, as a matter of course, are CFCs and HFCs. So the older stuff HFCs, the generation that's currently being phased down, and I think we need to start destroying them their end of life HFC material Now. Is that too hot? What are you guys,
Charles Jelen: no,
Ray Rieling: that's,
Charles Jelen: no, that's, I, I will, I will say it's like a B side.
Yeah. Hot track. Okay. But it's good. So give us a little bit, dig. We're gonna, we're gonna dig into Zoom way out here in a little bit. Yeah. But why is it so controversial in the industry to go after and destroy HFCs today?
Ray Rieling: So, great question. The reasons that CFCs and H CFCs, the older refrigerants are eligible for destruction is because they're no longer being produced.
So there's no worry that. Destruction downstream will incentivize more production upstream and create carbon leakage effectively. HFCs are the generation of refrigerants that are being phased out as we speak, so they're still being produced now. So it's controversial because there is some of the opinion that destruction downstream will incentivize more production upstream.
I am not really, I'm not quite sure I buy that.
Charles Jelen: What would be the benefit of destroying refrigerant that we're still producing?
Ray Rieling: The benefit is there's so much of it still rounds, right? Okay. By some estimates, HFCs accounts for a hundred billion metric tons of emissions per year. So there's a lot of it sloshing around out there in the market.
That's one a hundred billion metric tons. Say that again. Say that again. 800 billion metric tons. Excuse me. 800 billion. My second point is by all accounts, the big chemical companies are just producing to their. Production quota per year without any regard for downstream signals. So they're just making as much refrigerant as the government will allow them come hell or high water regardless of what's happening downstream.
But the real point is that if we don't get ahead of the curve on destruction, we're gonna end up with HFC material sitting around and leaking for decades after it's needed, which is what we're seeing with CFCs. So if we go the same course with HFCs, this material is just gonna sit around and rusty, leaky old cylinders for the next decades, well after people have retired the systems.
And so I think we should get ahead of that curve.
Charles Jelen: Got it. Hmm. Got it. So let's, let's zoom back out. We, we, we took your hot take and we went down a hole there. Let's get back out here. You mentioned it a little bit, but give us a little bit of background. What is trade water? What are you guys doing in the building sector?
Ray Rieling: Sure. So trade water is a RA carbon offset project developer that focuses on the destruction of legacy refrigerants. So we collect and destroy end of life refrigerants. And for that we are. Issued carbon offset credits by the offset registries. So our big theory is that refrigerants at the end of life should be destroyed.
They have a tremendous global warming potential. R 12, which is one of the older CFCs that we work with, is 10,000 times more potent, uh, greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. And there's currently no provision for the end of life for these gases. You're not allowed to intentionally vent them. But other than that, for the most part, they just sit around in old canisters until the canisters rust out and leak through.
So trade water's on a mission to collect those refrigerants, see that they're safely destroyed. And in the process of that, we generate carbon offset credits.
Charles Jelen: Yeah, so that brings up a question is when you destroy them, it's clearly not for free in terms of energy and how you're doing it. So can you talk a little bit about how you're physically destroying these things and what actually goes into them in terms of energy and the emissions associated with it?
Like, so if you put in one unit of refrigerant, do you create a hundred percent return in terms of the offset, or is there a little bit of a D rate because you have. Other energy that goes into the process.
Ray Rieling: So are the methodologies that we operate under. They include a reduction for emissions associated with the project.
So that takes into account the emissions it takes to ship the refrigerants to our warehouse in Chicago. You know, it takes into account the emissions to ship the refrigerants from a warehouse to a destruction facility, and then for the energy that goes into the destruction facility as well. 'cause like I said, we incinerate the refrigerants.
There's a couple different processes that we do, but. Functionally, they're burned to a super high temperature where the molecules decompose. What we find is the emissions reduction factor is relatively small. One of the projects you and I did recently, I don't know the exact numbers, but I, I think we destroyed 170 tons of CO2 E from the destruction of R 22 from one of the facilities we worked on.
Trade water was granted 165 carbon offsets for that work. So we took a haircut of about five tons of CO2 E to account for the project emissions. We find that number's relatively small because the potency of this material is so high, right? One pound of R 12, CFC 12 R 12, one of the nastier gases is equivalent to burning about 480 gallons of gasoline.
So we could drive a lot of refrigerant around the country for the effect of a single pound of R 12
Dan Gentry: Is the process to destroy these refrigerants. Same for all of 'em. And is that generally the way that it's done in the industry or are there different ways it can be done?
Ray Rieling: I think the short answer is for the most part, they're all incinerated, as far as I'm aware.
Incineration, iss the only way to destroy them. So it's, it's, it's heat 'em up to a really hot temperature
Charles Jelen: or is that like combust them?
Ray Rieling: I think it's heating 'em up to really hot temperatures such that they combust. Yeah, I have. Maybe I actually talked with you all train about this Charlie. There may be some way to like use some chemicals like R 22 as feedstocks into different industrial processes such that they're transformed to create a different polymer.
Yep. I was a very poor chemistry student, so please don't push too any harder on this.
Dan Gentry: I was too, I was gonna ask that question though, if there's certain refrigerants that can be repurposed and it does sound like there are some that can be reused in a different way or chemically changed.
Ray Rieling: That's correct.
A lot of refrigerants are. Feedstocks for other industrial processes. So like. You can turn R one 14 into R one 16 I, I think the rub, and again, poor chemistry student, I think the rub here is that oftentimes those processes create a chemical with an even higher global waring potential. And it's relatively rare that they create a new compound that has less global waring potential.
But it, I think it is the case in some instances, R 22, for example, my understanding can be used to make some sort of polymer that has low global warming potential. But refrigerants are a feedstock for a lot of industrial policies in addition to being used in cooling equipment. Cool.
Charles Jelen: So after a piece of equipment comes to end of life,
Ray Rieling: yeah.
Charles Jelen: Step one is reclaim the refrigerant instead of vent it. After you reclaim the refrigerant. What are the options that you can do with the refrigerant? Because we're talking about destruction so far, but what are the other options that go in and why is one of these avenues better than the other?
Ray Rieling: So I, I don't mean to, well, actually you, but the, um.
Recovery is the term for taking the refrigerant outta the machine. We call a recovery. Thank you. Yeah, and I only say that because one of the next steps you can do is reclaim it. Yep. So once we recover the refrigerant from machine, you know, which means safely pull it outta the machine into a recovery cylinder.
Uh, actually I have a recovery cylinder right here. This is what they look
Charles Jelen: like. Listener. This guy is legit. He's cro.
Ray Rieling: This one's. R 22 Gen John 22. There's a couple different options. The options are, okay. Why do you have an R 22 cylinder? Just such situations. I, I talk to people about refrigerant every day and it helps to, most people are like, what are you talking about?
I don't know, refrigerators. So it helps to have something to make it a little more real. The main options are you can reclaim it or you can destroy it and reclaim it is a, a fancy word for recycling that the refrigerant industry uses. The other thing that can happen with it is destruction. I suppose there's a third door, which happens quite often, where it just gets stored, you know, it gets put in a building manager's sub-basement somewhere and forgotten about, or it, it sits back in someone's shed and, and is forgotten about.
Charles Jelen: Let's talk a little bit here about, we have some mutual clients that are doing this inside their corporations. What do you like about large corporations going after refrigerant destruction inside of their own portfolio?
Ray Rieling: There's a bunch of things I like about it. One of the challenges of refrigerants is they're really diffuse, right?
They're. They're everywhere. Like that unit behind Dan probably has refrigerant in it. You know, I, my refrigerator has like four ounces of refrigerant and my home air conditioning unit has like four pounds of refrigerant. So part of the challenge that trade water has is it's, these things are very diffuse and it's kind of hard to get your hands on 'em.
Some people have really large stockpiles and some people have really big chillers with thousands of pounds, but. This stuff is all over the place. So by working with large companies with large physical footprints, it's a way for us to organize the material, you know, and to systematically collect it. Two, it's a great way to raise awareness about it.
Everybody knows about cooling equipment, but it's much less and well known how potent these greenhouse gases are, and so large companies working on it, I think raises awareness and helps the general public become more proactive about it. And the third thing, something I find very interesting is some mutual clients we've worked with, trained as a turnkey HVAC work for them to replace a system.
The recovered refrigerant is sent to trade water. We destroy it. And then what we do is we return to this clients the offset credits that are generated from that work. And so it's a way for the customer to source offsets from material that is in their own value chain. So back to our question about the integrity of carbon markets and you know, is this, is this all Fugazi.
I think sourcing offsets from material in your own value chain is a way to a high degree of fidelity to the own work that you do. So it's not a forestry project halfway around the world, and don't get me wrong, forestry projects are important, but it's about as close of an offset as you can get, I think, to work that your own company is doing.
Charles Jelen: I needed to see a little bit more Matthew McConaughey in that Fugazi.
Ray Rieling: Give you another opportunity to say it. I'll, I'll, I'll work it in next time.
Charles Jelen: Alright. Now looking to the future, what recommendations do you have for designers, building manager, technicians, people that are designing in the space or or handling refrigerant? What are your recommendations as they think about refrigerant right now?
Ray Rieling: So I think there's a couple things we can be thinking about. And actually, Charlie, this is one I'd love to hear your thoughts on too. 'cause I feel like this is your wheelhouse. This is there. No,
Charles Jelen: I ask the questions.
Go ahead.
Ray Rieling: There's, um, there's some really exciting low GW p cooling systems coming online, right? Mm-hmm. Whether they're HFO systems or natural refrigerants like CO2 or ammonia. Or propane. Mm-hmm. So I would encourage anyone in the space to, whenever possible look at. Whatever. We'll look at low GWP options also allows you to transition away from HFCs, which as we discussed, rather onerous reporting requirements.
And a great way to get outta those onerous reporting requirements is to an upgrade to a low GWP system. So I think that's one. Number two is. Have really strong lifecycle refrigerant management practices. So make sure that only certified technicians are working on your machines wherever possible. Do leak control systems so you can understand if your systems are leaking, and if so by how much.
And then whenever you work on these things, make sure the materials recovered safely and there's no, God forbid, there's intentional venting, but also certainly no unintentional venting. And then lastly. The material should be destroyed when it comes outta the machine. If not, it's just gonna get put back into someone else's old leaky equipment and vent that into the atmosphere.
But if you capture this material and you have an opportunity to control it, you should see that it's destroyed. 'cause the only place that's going otherwise is into the atmosphere. So just do
Dan Gentry: the right
Ray Rieling: thing. Yeah, that's right. It's not that hard.
Charles Jelen: What was it? I was waiting for a question.
Ray Rieling: I would love to hear your take on like low GWP options.
That's, I feel like I know just a little bit about it, but that's really exciting. And how we'll bend the curve on refrigerated emissions is transitioning to systems that run on low or ultra low GWP material.
Charles Jelen: Yeah, it's a changing space rapidly and we're, we used to have two refrigerants for all the products from smallest residential to the largest centrifugal, commercial wise industrial.
Two refrigerants whole thing. Now we have 15. It's wild refrigerants wild across the whole span. Yeah. And there're, there're some that are kind of niche based on the application and, and so they're increasing, some of that is application based and so we need more refrigerants to handle the different applications.
Some of it is just pressure and pressure vessel and construction related. Yeah. So there's a lot of different reasons we're, we're moving to, to more refrigerants. But yeah, in general, if you look at large centrifugals. Gws of one. Gws of two. Yeah. Ultra low.
Dan Gentry: So like the biggest projects we're doing have the lowest are using the lowest.
Right. GWP fluids we offer.
Charles Jelen: Yeah, that's great. The hardest part is in the unitary market where we didn't have, we do not have great ultra low GW p options. We ended up with refrigerants. To get even down under 700 GWP or seven 50 GWP. We ended up with slightly flammable refrigerants, which we are not gonna get into on this show right now.
But it opens up a whole can of worms on technicians and how we apply this and, and how you manage that inside of the built environment and people.
Ray Rieling: Yeah. Something that I've found really interesting is that. Some of the earliest refrigerants were used were natural refrigerants, ammonia. Mm-hmm. CO2 propane, and those kind of went outta fashion for quite some time.
But they're interesting. They're coming back around as the technology and the engineering allows us to use them better. In some ways, were kind of back to where we started with natural refrigerants
Charles Jelen: a little bit. Some of those, like those refrigerants never went away. We've continued to use them. The reason that we moved away from them is still the reason that we don't use them at scale, which is a lot of safety related concerns.
Like ammonia is flammable, toxic, corrosive, which is why we, we, we still see a lot of ammonia plants, but the ammonia is in industrial plants where there's not a lot of people associated with it. Not a lot of people are looking to apply ammonia in large, large equipment. Where people are heavily densely populated around it.
Same thing with propane is propane is super efficient, can be super efficient, but explosive. And so that creates a problem. And so we're seeing, and I think what you're alluding to is we're seeing more of those applications come in, but they're in really small. Quantities. And so they're like, you know, ounces or grams or, or maybe a pound of refrigerant.
So they're in small circuits and you'll see like isobutane in refrigerators.
Ray Rieling: Yeah.
Charles Jelen: You know, and so we're definitely kind of pushing the line up on that, but their concerns are still there. Yeah. On the safety side of how we apply those refrigerants,
Ray Rieling: I imagine it's a hard sell to sell someone, an ammonia powered.
Refrigerator if use in their house depends
Dan Gentry: on the customer, because some, like you're saying, for industrials, a lot of them love using those systems. Mm-hmm. But for the, you know, an ice rink where you got kids playing skating around like that in a heavily occupied place, it's more of a challenge.
Ray Rieling: Yeah, that makes sense.
Fascinating how they're always, the refrigeration always seems to be in transition and movement, though of the materials that we're using.
Dan Gentry: Keeps it fun.
Ray Rieling: Yeah.
Charles Jelen: Alright, Ray, thank you for joining the show. Very much appreciated. Very good conversation. Thank you again.
Ray Rieling: Yeah, thank you guys. Really appreciate the opportunity and the conversation.
Dan Gentry: Are you ready to elevate your building design and analysis process? Introducing Trace 3D Plus from Trane.
Charles Jelen: Well, listener Trace 3D plus delivers faster, more accurate results through an intuitive workflow that aligns perfectly with today's building processes.
Dan Gentry: With Trace 3D plus version seven, you'll find improved functionality, more system configurations.
Outputs designed to support your business efforts,
Charles Jelen: and version seven also includes enhanced data visualizer upgrades, making it easier than ever to analyze and compare your designs.
Dan Gentry: Trace 3D plus making your job easier, your design smarter, and your buildings more sustainable. Visit trane.com to get started today.
Charles Jelen: All right, listener. In this episode, we've talked all about refrigerants, and now it's time for your refrigerants. We heard rays and we've asked you to send your rants to Cool air.hot takes@trane.com, and here's a curated list of some of the best.
Dan Gentry: So for our first rant, coming in from Trevor J in Dallas, Texas.
Thank you Trevor, friend of the show. I. Front of the show big time. Why do we even have refrigerants? Can we just get rid of them already? That was a good Trevor rant there.
Charles Jelen: Thank you. Generally, we use vapor compression, which is how we move BTUs from a source to a sink. And we use refrigerants. I think people get bent around the act when, when they think of refrigerant, they think of like a, a chemical.
Yes. Or like a, you know, five, 14, a 1, 2, 3, 3 zd, 1, 2, 3, 4 Z. They think of these refrigerants that we use today, but I would generically call a refrigerant, a working fluid. I like it, right? Working fluid. Like it's, it's something that just moves BTUs around the circuit, so, so we need refrigerants, so I don't think we can get rid of them unless we move to a totally new technology.
Not like totally away from
Dan Gentry: vapor compression. So we can use, uh, we don't need to use the tradition. I, I mean, water could be a refrigerant. Totally. Absolutely. It could be. It won't be very efficient. But, but So we need to use 'em for now. Yeah. Until technology changes, but that's right. Okay. Sorry Trevor. Good question.
I.
Charles Jelen: Next rant from Randy s in Chicago, Illinois. He writes in, I have a refrige rant. Can we please go back to R 22? What's wrong with R 22? Lots of exclamation marks and question marks in there.
Dan Gentry: Oh, Randy, we love you. That's a, that's a good rant and a lot of people love our 22.
Charles Jelen: Yeah, R 22 is used. Used for a long time.
R 22 was used like fifties maybe ish, up until the nineties. I think it finally got phased out 2020. But we used R 22 for everything, which was why people liked it so much. We used it in scroll compressors, so everything down to residential. We used it in screw compressors. We used it in centrifugal compressors.
So the ran the gamut of. A ton of compression to thousands of tons of compression.
Dan Gentry: And from a performance it's a good performing Fluid. Fluid. Very, it just has poor environmental performance.
Charles Jelen: Yeah. It was phased out because of ozone depletion potential, not even because of global warming potential GWP. So it's been gone for a while.
I don't think we're bringing our 22 back, but, you know, never
Dan Gentry: say never. I'm sorry, Randy. I, I don't think I see that happening either. Don't think that's gonna happen. Good rant. Good rant. That was a good one. Next rant comes to us from Eric a. In the big Apple, so known as New York City. He says, Hey guys, I have a refrigerant.
Everything about N-Y-S-D-E-C part 4 94. Please elaborate there. What's that? Yeah, a little bit to unpack. So that is a, it's a statewide equipment refrigerant phase out, and so one part of that. By 2030, the GWP for VRF systems is limited to 10 ten's. A pretty ten's a pretty low number. Yes. 10. That's 10 low.
Charles Jelen: So like today we're, we're using stuff in the 500, 600. 700. That's a pretty
Dan Gentry: big step.
Charles Jelen: Yeah. So that basically eliminates VRF in the state of New York in 2030.
Dan Gentry: Yeah. 2034. Unitarian heat pumps also tend, so there's gonna be some challenges there. Maybe some innovation.
Charles Jelen: Yeah. That's gonna be a stretch there. 2030 for V-R-F-V-R.
F's a big, big market. New York and greater northeast in general. Oof. I can see why that's a rant, Eric. Yeah, that, that's a good rant.
Dan Gentry: It's gonna be interesting. Thank you Eric. Alright. Thanks so much for sending in the rants. Don't forget cool air. Hot takes@train.com. Shoot us a note. Next up, next stat of the day.
Stat of the day.
Charles Jelen: Here comes Joe. Stat of the day. Day of the day. Day stat of the day. All right, time for stat of the day. This one was inspired because at the end of every year, Spotify, I'm sure. A lot of you out there are Spotify subscribers. You get your year in review and you get to see what you've been listening to.
And for me, it's always a little depressing because I love music and my playlist is filled with all of the things my kids listen to because we have those, you know, echoes around the house and they just play music constantly. So it very, one of the interesting top five was Sandstorm. You know, sandstorm, that old school like disco beat.
Uh,
Dan Gentry: no,
Charles Jelen: no, no. Well, don't play it at seven 30 when you're trying to get breakfast ready. That's a hard one to, that's a hard one to start the day on. Alright. But it inspired the stat of the day today, which is top streamed songs of the last five years, so the, the most streamed song of every year for the last five years.
Before we get into this though, Dan, what are you listening to right now?
Dan Gentry: Well, you know. Our listener may, may know. I'm, I'm kind of a swifty. Kind
Charles Jelen: of a swifty. I don't know if that's a, I feel like that's a binary, like you're either in or you're not. Yeah.
Dan Gentry: I'm, I'm a swifty. Yeah. Uh, I listen to a lot of Taylor Swift.
That's okay. Good stuff. How about you, man? What do you do?
Charles Jelen: I've got a heavy dose of Billy Strings right now.
Dan Gentry: Uh, Billy Strings is good. Good road trip in music too.
Charles Jelen: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a little for the listener out there. If you haven't heard of Billy Strings, it's a little Bluegrassy Jam. Bandy. Little rocky.
A little little. All that. You gotta check it out. Big fan. Anyways, here we go. So, top stream songs. The last five years, we're gonna start backwards. So 2020. The top stream song and there were 3.2 billion streams. It was heat waves by glass animals,
Dan Gentry: heat waves. Freaking me. Is that, yeah.
Charles Jelen: I have no idea. I, this is not my, that's not in my wheelhouse, but that sounded really good.
2021. 3.5 billion streams stay by Justin Bieber, the Beebs. Gotta love the Beebs 2022 as it was by Harry Styles, 3.7 billion streams.
Dan Gentry: I'm not as familiar, I guess I haven't dabbled in, um, a lot of Harry styles.
Charles Jelen: You know what is also crazy? 3.7 billion streams is the most streams by any song on this list in the last five years.
Wow. And I don't even know if I don't know the song.
Dan Gentry: Well, we're probably gonna get there pretty soon, so, uh, keep listening.
Charles Jelen: There you go. 2023 Flowers by Miley Cyrus. 2.4 billion streams. Hmm. Not a huge fan of that song. I'm more of a wrecking
Dan Gentry: ball guy, but that's just my opinion.
Charles Jelen: Okay. 2024. Birds of a Feather by Billy Eyelash.
Eilish, not Billy Eyelash. I'm not familiar. 2 billion streams. It's kind of crazy. It's gone downhill ever since 2020. It came down to 2 billion from 3.2. Huh, interesting. Well, there you go. There you go. Stat of the day. I would like to say this is a total rip off of the Dan Patrick show. They do stat of the day.
I'm sure all the Dan animals are, are, are listening, or the Dan Nets. I'm sure the Dan Nets are listening. So thank you guys. It's a great segment.
Dan Gentry: All right. And. As always, thanks for listening to the episode of Cool Air Hot Takes. Thanks to Ray Riling for joining the show. A special thanks to our wonderful producer, Elena Guthrie. And finally, we have to thank Christy Upton for getting this all pulled together and making this actually happen. Very big thanks to her.
Next time we have a very special guest, Jean Simone Ven. He's a co-founder of an AI company called Brainbox ai and we're gonna find out, uh, where the HVAC industry is heading with ai.
Charles Jelen: That's gonna be a good one. Oh yeah, it's gonna be good. Alright, drop us a message. Cool. air.hot takes@trane.com we want to hear your.
Questions, we want to hear your hot takes. We want your rants. Whatever you got, if, if you've got corrections on things we've said, send them in, let us know. We'll make sure you get some airtime. If you like the show, please like and subscribe. Give us a rating and review for the podcast wherever you listen.
And until next time,
Dan Gentry: from your newly appointed Chief Vibes Officer, stay cool and keep those. Takes hot. I love it.
