Energy Vanguard Blog

I was a kid a long, long time ago. Seems like it was another century...another millennium even. Wait a minute — it was another millennium! That was back in the day when we used to ride bicycles without helmets, apply mercury to our wounds, move seat belts out of the way (if the car even had them), and put our tongue on steel poles in the middle of winter. Of course, in Texas and Louisiana we just ended up with a bad taste in our mouth from those steel poles and wondered why people made such a big deal about it.

I'm new to global warming. I didn't hear about it until 1983. Even thirty years ago, the science behind the greenhouse effect and global warming was well known. French Physicist and mathematician Joseph Fourier (shown at left) is generally credited with being the first to hypothesize that the Earth is warmed by its atmosphere and even that we humans can change the climate. That goes all the way back to 1827.

Spray foam insulation evokes some interesting conversation among building science professionals, those in construction, environmentalists, and homeowners who have it in their homes. Many think it solves all problems, no matter how poorly it's installed. Some think it's helping to warm the planet and compromise the health of people and pets. In the middle are those who work with it regularly and see both the warts and the beauty of the product.

Dry-ship R-22 air conditioners and heat pumps - A term that was new to me 10 days ago. It's a pretty big story but even the New York Times doesn't know about it yet. They just published an article about the smuggling of R-22 refrigerant, the HCFC replacement for the CFCs of the pre-Montreal Protocol days. They glossed over the dry-ship R-22 story and seem not to have grasped it completely.

This is going to be a short article, mainly just providing a quick summary and some links to the ozone depletion work of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). In the article I wrote last week about dry-ship R-22 air conditioners and heat pumps, a couple of commenters questioned the science behind ozone depletion. As a physicist, I have respect for legitimate questions being raised. I also have concern about the way science gets abused and turned on its ear by those who want to create confusion that leads to inaction. It's happened over and over. Just look at the history of tobacco, global warming, and acid rain. Denial and obfuscation are the main tools of those who want to prevent or delay action.

Buildings use a lot of energy. We spend the majority of our time inside them, controlling the temperature, using computers, charging cell phones, keeping our food cold, getting our food hot, taking hot showers...all those things we do in our daily lives that we rarely give a second thought to. Most of what we do in buildings uses energy. Lots of energy.