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Dear friends in refrigeration,
I regret to inform you that member Russ Nicholson passed away last month, his committal was on Thursday 11th July 2013
Russ lived in China in recent years after serving many years with Carter Refrigeration at their London Offices, he kept in touch via emails, talking of life in China along with topics of the day and risqué jokes which I never dare pass on, May he rest in peace.. RAF
London Refrigeration Society
Meeting of 14th March 2013 at Chimes Wine Bar
13 attended the discussion “What is the Industries Future” lead by Mr Andrew Gaved Editor of RAC magazine.
Where is our Industry going? With new developments in technology are we going too fast or should we improve what we already have? Do our engineers get enough training? Should we just improve our gas tightness and contain these “horrible” substances?
Andrew told of the Cass Business School who had discovered after studying Formula One Racing Cars the fascinating fact that ‘too much advanced technology actually harms performance.” He suggested this could be equally true of refrigeration? Are we developing new systems and not trialling them thoroughly? References were made by the group to several catastrophic failures in systems that blew joints, exploded, had partial shut downs, or were topped up with non-compatible substances! Was this because the technology had been brought in before the industry, particularly the engineers, were thoroughly prepared for it?
Do development managers and end user managers agree on time lines, or are they pushing too fast? Is it cost or quality that decides progress? The Cass Business School concluded that ‘adapting current technology may be a better route than continually finding new solutions’.
One of the ways that we could be doing this, Andrew suggested is with HFOs - Hydro Fluoro Olefins which have a very short atmospheric life time and have a reduction in global warming potential for all production manufactures. They are new refrigerants, but they are designed to be used in the same way as HFCs, which means adaptation, not radical change.
We discussed car AC where the car manufactures had all agreed to use these HFOs to meet the European directive, but now the Germans had dissented, because they really want to use CO2. But there are problems of CO2 in hot ambient weather systems where pressures rise dramatically. It was said that AC in a car decreases effective output by 4/5 HP . Will the Germans only sell their cars in colder countries in future?
We also talked about the popular supermarkets’ progress in introducing carbon dioxide to their systems and their varied success, but I will not mention names You should have come and joined in the lively debate. Andrew provocatively suggested that anyone working on refrigeration would need to learn about CO2 in the next five to ten years.
Should we reinvent the wheel and will employers really commit to real training?
We need Gentle Evolution not Violent Revolution. As the Cass researchers said, we must move ‘fast but not too fast.’ Yes all clichés I know, but as the guys on the sharp end of the industry we need answers very soon.
We thanked Andrew (and ourselves) for a very lively debate and an interesting meeting.
Ron Filer
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