Honeywell began developing HFC alternatives as far back as 2000 and has invested $500 million to date, a company spokesman said. It has manufacturing partnerships with local producers in India, Japan and China to produce an alternative refrigerant used in automobile air conditioners called HFO-1234yf. A spokesman for Milwaukee-based Johnson Controls Inc. , said the company is working on developing HFC alternatives but declined to provide details. As companies in developed countries will have to scale up production of HFC alternatives and new cooling systems, any increase in costs to consumers will eventually come down, Durwood Zaelke, president of Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development, a sustainable development research and advocacy group. Most of the cost is the electricity, the refrigerant is about one percent of the life cycle cost (of the AC).” Reuters

Source: Mint October 17, 2016 04:04 UTC