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Article history:
Received 30 October 2012
Received in revised form
7 April 2013
Accepted 22 April 2013
Available online 11 May 2013
This paper presents a model for assessing the carbon footprint of food transport refrigeration systems.
The model considers all the impacts of the refrigerators and refrigerants in each process, including
production, transport, use, repair and recycling, on greenhouse gas emissions expressed as the CO2
equivalent emissions in total. The carbon footprint can be divided into direct emissions which are the
greenhouse effect caused by various greenhouse gas emissions and leakage in each process, and indirect
emissions which are the CO2 equivalent emissions due to the energy consumption in each process. This
model was used to evaluate the carbon footprint of food transport refrigeration systems with three
refrigerants, R404A and the environmentally benign refrigerants R744 (CO2) and R410A for various
ambient temperatures, refrigeration temperatures, lifetimes and refrigerator drive modes. The results
show that the carbon footprint of food transport refrigeration systems with R404A is larger than for R744
and R410A. Although the Global Warming Potential (GWP) of R744 is the lowest, the carbon footprint of
food transport refrigeration systems with R744 is not always the smallest, but may exceed that of R410A
in high temperature areas. The CO2 emissions caused by the energy consumption are a large part of the
total CO2 emissions, with the energy consumption to power the refrigerator and to carry the refrigeration
unit weight resulting in the largest proportions; thus increasing the coefcient of performance (COP) of
the refrigerator and the efciencies of other equipments can signicantly reduce the energy consumption
and CO2 emissions. Higher ambient temperatures and lower refrigeration temperatures lead to more CO2
emissions. Refrigerators driven by auxiliary engines have higher CO2 emissions than refrigeration systems driven by the main vehicle engine or electricity. The carbon footprint evaluation model developed
in this paper can also be used to evaluate the carbon footprint of mobile air conditioning and other
systems.
2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords:
Global warming
Carbon footprint assessment
Life cycle
Food transport refrigeration
Refrigerants
1. Introduction
Global warming, which is caused by greenhouse gas emissions
and is responsible for extreme weather in recent years, has
attracted increasing attention from both governments and scientists around the world. The Fourth Assessment Report of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released in 2007
pointed out that the average global surface temperature increased
by about 0.74 K in the past 100 years (1906e2005). This is greater
than the 0.6 K in the Third Assessment Report published in 2001.
This will lead to an accelerating rate of sea ice reduction and sea
level rise (IPCC, 2007). For this reason, people are paying greater
116
Nomenclature
er1
er2
E
F
Ea
Epower
Ep1
Ep2
Erecycle
Et1
Et2
Eweight
H
lu
lb
L
Li
m1
m2
n
is a mixture of HFC-32 and HFC-125, and R404A is a mixture of HFC125, HFC-143a and HFC-134a. Both R744 and R410A are environmentally benign refrigerants, while R404A is not, since it has a large
Global Warming Potential (GWP) of 3784.
Refrigerants play an important role in food transport refrigeration systems and in other refrigeration and air-conditioning systems. Improving living standards are resulting in more refrigerated
food transport, which means more refrigerants used and more CO2
emitted due to energy consumption. According to incomplete statistics in 2002, there were over 1,000,000 refrigerated food trucks
and over 400,000 refrigerated food containers in the world
(Billiard, 2002). This refrigerated food transport results in large
amounts of CO2 emissions. For example, in the UK, CO2 emissions
due to these processes are more than 18,000 tons a year. This only
accounts for the direct emissions of vehicle engines, with other CO2
emissions, for instance due to operation of the refrigeration
equipment and refrigerant leakage not included (Tassou et al.,
2009). A correct global warming impact evaluation of food transport refrigeration systems is needed to exploring effective ways to
reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The currently used evaluation indexes for the global warming
impact are mainly the Global Warming Potential (GWP), the Total
Equivalent Warming Impact (TEWI) and the Life Cycle Climate
Performance (LCCP). GWP is used as a general evaluation index for
global warming impact while TEWI and LCCP are evaluation indexes
specially developed for refrigeration systems. In this research, a
more comprehensive global warming impact evaluation model
based on the carbon footprint concept has been developed to
provide a more complete assessment of the global warming impact
of food transport refrigeration systems. The carbon footprint evaluation model fully considers each refrigerant and refrigeration
process throughout the life cycle including production, transport,
use, repair, and recycling, and all of the inuential factors, such as
Qi
R
S1
S2
v
V
Greek symbols
refrigerant recycling rate
CO2 emissions per kWh energy generation, kg/kWh
function of distribution
3
refrigeration coefcient of the refrigerator
hbattery battery efciency
hgenerator generator efciency
hk
engine efciency at one speed
hmotor
motor efciency
hpp
power plant efciency
hsub-engine auxiliary engine efciency
s0
refrigerator annual working time, h/year
a
b
g
Subscripts
1
refrigerator
2
refrigerant
v
vehicle speed
t
ambient temperature
i, j, k
tensor indexes
e
electricity
f
fuel
the local ambient temperature, refrigerant, refrigeration temperature, vehicle speed, and refrigerator drive mode. The model is used
to evaluate the carbon footprint for food transport refrigeration
systems using three refrigerants, R404A and the environmentally
benign refrigerants R744 and R410A in different climates in
different countries, for different lifetimes, different refrigeration
temperatures and different drive modes.
2. Overview of evaluation indexes for the global warming
impact
The commonly used evaluation indexes for the global warming
impact include the GWP, TEWI and LCCP. GWP provides a basis for
comparing the global warming impact of greenhouse gases while
TEWI and LCCP are indexes used to evaluate the global warming
impact of refrigeration systems. As carbon emissions have
increased and the environmental effects have become more severe
in recent years, a new concept, the carbon footprint, has been
proposed (Rees, 1992).
2.1. GWP
The Global Warming Potential (GWP) is used to measure the
greenhouse gas effect of a gas based on its radiative properties
relative to CO2 over a given time frame. The GWP of CO2 is 1. A gas
with a higher GWP indicates that it has more impact on the environment. The GWP depends on the: (1) infrared radiation absorptivity of the gas, (2) the gas lifetime in the atmosphere, and (3) the
selected time frame (WMO, 1999). Thus, the same gas can have
different GWP for different time frames with 100 years normally
used as the standard time frame. The GWP, then, just reects the
impact of the gas properties on the global warming.
2.2. TEWI
When using refrigerants, the greenhouse impact is not only
caused by refrigerant leakage into the atmosphere, but also by the
energy consumption of the refrigeration system. The Total Equivalent Warming Impact (TEWI) which includes direct emissions
caused by the leakage of greenhouse gases and indirect emissions
caused by the energy consumption of the refrigeration system was
then developed. The direct emissions depend on the GWP of the
refrigerant, the amount of refrigerant leakage, the equipment
running time, etc. While the indirect emissions depend on the
energy consumption during operation and the CO2 emissions per
unit energy generation, that is (Orfeo, 1996):
(1)
(2)
Indirect emissions n Ea b
(3)
LCCP L n R 1 a GWP E F n Ea b
117
Table 1
LCCP of residential air conditioning in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. (Arthur D. Little, Inc.,
1999).
SEER
Refrigerant
Indirect
emissionsa
(CO2 eq.) kg
Direct emissions
(CO2 eq.) kg
2.9
3.5
HCFC-22
HCFC-22
R407C
R410A
R290
HCFC-22
R407C
R410A
32,955
27,466
27,466
27,466
27,466
23,357
23,357
23,357
3969
2381
1940
1802
6
2381
1940
1802
36,924
29,847
29,406
29,268
27,472
25,738
25,297
25,159
4.1
lower than with HFC-134a, which means that mobile airconditioning systems with R744 signicantly reduce CO2 emissions.
A LCCP assessment model given by Papasavva et al. (2010)
assessed the direct and indirect CO2 equivalent emissions related
to mobile air-conditioning system usage as well as those associated
with the production, use and repair of alternative refrigerants and
mobile air-conditioning system components. This model was then
used to evaluate the change in the LCCP of all mobile air-conditioning systems worldwide with HFC-134a, HFO1234yf and R744
assuming the hypothetical scenario that the entire global eet
registered in 2017 was equipped with new alternative refrigerant
mobile air-conditioning systems, to evaluate the potential global
benets of the best alternative option. The results indicated that
HFO1234yf led to the lowest overall global LCCP.
Although there are some estimates of LCCP for house and mobile air-conditioning systems, these studies are still inadequate
because they simply adopted estimated effect factors E and F from
other articles without comprehensive consideration of all the
processes while other models lacked detailed descriptions in the
models.
2.4. Carbon footprint
The carbon footprint concept is becoming more popular in
recent years. The carbon footprint describes the CO2 emissions of
a given product or process for its whole life, but has several denitions. Wiedmann and Minx (2007) dened the carbon footprint
as a measure of the total amount of carbon dioxide emissions
directly and indirectly caused by an activity or that accumulate over
a product lifetime and presented carbon footprint analysis for two
(4)
Fig. 1. LCCP of mobile air-conditioning systems with HFC-134a and R744 (Hafner et al.,
2004).
118
each process, including the emissions of byproducts with greenhouse impact in the production of the refrigerants and refrigerators, the leakage of the refrigerants during assembly and
transport, and the leakage of the refrigerants during use, repair and
recycling. The indirect emissions are the CO2 equivalent emissions
due to the energy consumption in each process including production, transport, use and recycling of the refrigerants and
refrigerators.
The carbon footprint (kg CO2-equiv.) can be calculated as:
(5)
(6)
Indirect emissions
Epower Eweight Et1 Et2 bf
(7)
P gti Qi 1
X
B
3 C
gvk i ik C
s n
B
@
h A 0
0
Epower
(8a)
0
Epower @
gti Qi
hsubengine 3
119
Table 2
GWP of R744, R410A and R404A (100 years) (Furuhama, 2004).
Refrigerant
R744
R410A
R404A
GWP
1975
3784
1
A s0 n
(8b)
0
Epower
BX
gvk
B
@
k
P
i
gti Qi
hmotori 3ik
C
C
A
s0 n
(8c)
In Eqs. (8a)e(8c), gvk is the vehicle speed distribution which is the
proportion of time a vehicle is driven at a given speed over a year and
hk is the engine efciency at this speed; gti describes the ambient
temperature distribution which is the proportion of time at a given
environmental temperature in a year and Qi is the cooling capacity at
this temperature, kW; 3 is the refrigeration coefcient of the refrigerator, which is equal to the coefcient of performance (COP) of the
refrigerator; s0 is the refrigerator annual working time, h/year; hsubengine is the auxiliary engine efciency; hmotori is the motor efciency; hpp is the power plant efciency; hbattery is the battery efciency; gj is the proportion in energy supplied to the refrigerators by
power plants; and hgenerator is the generator efciency.
In Eq. (7), the other energy consumption terms are calculated as:
Eweight
gvk
Et1
Et2
gvk1
nk
m1 m2 V H s0 n
hk
k1
hk1
k2
gvk2
hk2
(9)
!
m1 S1 V1 H1
(10)
m2 S2 V2 H2
(11)
(12)
Fig. 3. Ambient temperature distribution, gti, in different cities: (a) Beijing and Berlin;
(b) Shanghai, Madrid, Tokyo, Osaka.
120
Fig. 4. Comparison of the LCCP and carbon footprints for three refrigerants (n 10
years, tR 0 C, Tokyo).
Carrier, Thermo King and MHI, with four vehicles from each company with different cooling capacities, with three refrigerants,
R404A and the environmentally benign refrigerants R744 and
R410A, two refrigeration temperatures of 0 C and 18 C, three
lifetimes of 2 years, 5 years and 10 years, as well as climates and CO2
emissions factors in six cities including Tokyo, Osaka, Beijing,
Shanghai, Berlin and Madrid.
The data used in the calculations is described as follows.
GWP. Table 2 shows the GWPs of R744, R404A and R410A based
on a time frame of 100 years (Furuhama, 2004).
Ambient temperature. Fig. 3 shows the temperature distributions in the six cities, with part of the data from the weather
database software Metronorm.
CO2 emissions factors. The CO2 emissions factor depends on the
energy type and generation method. The CO2 emissions factor for
the fuel, bf, was set to be 0.249 kg CO2/kWh based on the IPCC
report (IPCC, 2006), with the assumption that the gasoline was a
general vehicle fuel. The energy sources used for the refrigerator
production, Ep1, refrigerant production, Ep2, and refrigerator recycling, Erecycle, are all assumed to be the countrys electrical supply.
Thus, thebp1, bp2, and brecycle are assumed to be equal to the CO2
emissions factors for each countrys electrical supply, be, which
depend on the national energy generation matrix including electricity generated from fossil fuels, nuclear, hydro (excluding pumped storage), geothermal, solar and biofuels. Therefore, be will
differ for each country and can vary from year to year. According to
the IEA report (IEA, 2012), for the year 2010, the be for China,
Germany, Japan and Spain were 0.766, 0.461, 0.416 and
0.238 kg CO2/kWh, respectively.
To better reect the inuence of the national energy generation
matrix on the CO2 emissions, the production and recycling of the
refrigerator and refrigerant were all assumed to be performed in
the same country as the investigated city. Thus, for each city, bp1,
bp2, and brecycle are all the same and equal to the CO2 emissions
factors of that countrys electrical supply.
Energy consumption for production and recycling. The energy consumption for manufacturing the refrigerant is related to
the production GWPs with R744, R404A and R410A having production GWPs of 0, 30, and 24, respectively (Furuhama, 2004). The
energy for manufacturing each kilogram of refrigerator was
assumed to be 5940 kg CO2/kg (Hiroaki et al., 2009). The energy for
recycling each kilogram of refrigerant and refrigerator were set to
4340 and 2690 kg CO2/kg, respectively (Kosuke et al., 2009).
Engine efciency and vehicle speed variation. Vehicle speed
commonly varies from 0 to 120 km/h. This variation was represented by three speed stages, 10, 40, and 100 km/h to represent the
speed ranges of 0e20, 21e70, and 71e120 km/h. The corresponding
gvk was determined from some survey data provided by the
manufacturer. For example, over a year, 46.8% of the time a vehicle is
driven at speeds of 0e20 km/h, so gvk is set to 46.8% for the speed of
10 km/h. gvk for 40 and 100 km/h can also be determined in a similar
way. The vehicle engine efciency and the auxiliary engine efciency also vary with the vehicle speed as well as the vehicle type.
Inherent refrigerators data. The refrigerator weight, refrigerant weight, and fuel consumption were obtained from the
refrigerator manufacturer websites (Carrier, 2012; MHI, 2012;
Thermo King, 2012). For example, for the Carrier Xarios 600, the
refrigerator weighs 189 kg, the refrigerant weighs 3.6 kg, and the
fuel consumption per unit weight per unit distance is 3.6 106 L/
kg km. The cooling capacities of the refrigerators at different
ambient temperatures were also obtained from the manufacturer
websites (Carrier, 2012; MHI, 2012; Thermo King, 2012). The COP of
the refrigerators was obtained in different ways, with some obtained from experimental data provided by the manufacturer and
others calculated according to their evaporation temperature,
condensation temperature and refrigerant using thermodynamic
theory.
Refrigerant leakage. Experimental data provided by the
manufacturer was used to set the refrigerant leakage at 2% of the
121
Fig. 6. COP variation with ambient temperature at different vehicle speeds (Xarios 600,
tR 0 C, R404A).
Fig. 8. COP variation with ambient temperature using R410A and R744 (Xarios 600,
tR 0 C, v 40 km/h).
refrigerant weight for the installation process, 0.02 kg/year for the
annual leakage during operation, and 0.1% of the refrigerant weight
for the annual leakage during repairing, while the refrigerant
recycling rate was taken to be 90%.
Transport distance before installation. The refrigerator
transport distance before installation was assumed to be 300 km as
an average distance between major cities, while the refrigerant
transport distance before installation was assumed to be 150 km,
based on average distance between adjacent cities.
Refrigerator working time. The refrigerator annual working
time was assumed to be 2000 h/year.
Others. The power plant efciency was assumed to be 37.4%, the
battery efciency was 95% and the generator efciency was 85%,
respectively, while the motor efciency varies with the ambient
temperature. The proportion of the energy supplied to the refrigerators by the power plant was assumed to be 50%.
Fig. 7. Carbon footprints for three refrigerants in Shanghai and Berlin (n 10 years, tR 0 C, v 40 km/h).
122
Fig. 9. Carbon footprints at two refrigeration temperatures (Xarios 600, n 10 years, R410A).
of the R744. This much larger GWP leads to much larger direct
emissions for R404A. The direct emissions of R744 are negligible in
the gure.
Although the GWP of R744 is very small and the direct CO2
emissions with R744 are negligible in Fig. 7, the carbon footprint
with R744 is not always the smallest. As can be seen in Fig. 7, in
Berlin the carbon footprint using R744 is the smallest, but in
Shanghai, where the temperature is higher than in Berlin, the carbon footprint with R744 is larger than that with R410A because the
refrigerator power effect dominates as the ambient temperature
increases. In Eq. (8), the refrigerator power effect varies inversely
with the refrigeration coefcient, 3, which decreases with
increasing ambient temperature. Fig. 8 shows the variation of the
Xarios 600 COP with the ambient temperature for R410A and R744
at tR 0 C and a vehicle speed of 40 km/h. The COP both decreases
with increasing ambient temperature with the COP for R744
smaller than for R410A; thus, the limitations of R744 COP become
more obvious as the ambient temperature increases. For example,
as the ambient temperature increased from 0 Cto 35 C, the COP
ratio of R744 to R410A decreased from 88% to 75%. Therefore, in
Shanghai with higher temperatures, the carbon footprint using
Fig. 10. COP variation with ambient temperature at two refrigeration temperatures
(Xarios 600, R410A, v 40 km/h).
Fig. 11. Carbon footprints for different refrigerator drive modes (n 10 years, tR 0 C,
R404A, Tokyo).
R744 is greater than that using R410A. Thus, R410A is the best
refrigerant for high temperature environments while R744 is the
best for low temperature environments in terms of the carbon
footprint.
3.3.4. Refrigeration temperature effect
The carbon footprints of food transport refrigeration systems
were further estimated for the twelve different vehicle types with
refrigeration temperatures of 0 C and 18 C. The calculation used
R410A with a 10 year lifetime in Tokyo, Beijing and Berlin. The results for the Carrier Xarios 600 system are shown in Fig. 9, as an
example.
The carbon footprint for tR 18 C is much larger than that for
tR 0 C because for the same ambient temperature, a lower
refrigeration temperature leads to a smaller COP, resulting in more
energy consumption for the same cooling capacity. The variation of
the Xarios 600 COP with ambient temperature is shown in Fig. 10
for refrigerant temperatures of 0 C and 18 C which shows that
for the same ambient temperature, the COP is much smaller for
tR 18 C than for tR 0 C.
3.3.5. Refrigerator drive mode effect
The carbon footprints of food transport refrigeration systems
were eventually evaluated for three different refrigerator drive
modes. The calculation used R404A at a 0 C refrigeration temperature for a 10 year lifetime. The results are shown in Fig. 11.
123
Fig. 12. Carbon footprints of refrigerators using the main engine or the auxiliary engine for different lifetimes and refrigeration temperatures (R404A, Tokyo): (a) 5 years tR 0 C;
(b) 10 years tR 0 C; (c) 10 years tR 18 C.
124
Acknowledgment
The work presented in this paper was supported by the National
973 Plan (No. 2010CB227305) and the International Science &
Technology Cooperation Program of China (No. 2012DFG61510).
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