The Minister of of the Environment Guro Fjellanger

Natural Working Fluids ´98 (IIR) – Gustav Lorentzen Conference

June 2 1998, Holmenkollen park hotel

Dear Friends,

On behalf of the Norwegian Government I would like to wish all the participants a welcome to this conference, and to all our visitors from abroad a hearty welcome to Norway.

We appreciate that the International Institute of Refrigeration (IIR) has given our country the honour to organise this prestigious and important conference. Development of technology that may improve our environment, with the industrial opportunities that emerge from this innovation, is an area which has high priority in Norway. I therefore appreciate the invitation to come here and give this opening speech.

You are gathered here to present and discuss new knowledge and new solutions that will bring forward a new robust generation of refrigeration, heat pump and air conditioning technology that will not be harmful to our global environment, neither by depleting the ozone layer nor by contributing to the global warming.

Norway should be an excellent meeting place for such a gathering. Refrigeration or «heat pumping» is a strategic important technology to our country. It is extensively used in our large export oriented fishing and aquaculture industry, within transportation, food industry, supermarkets and in our homes, and we have a number of small and medium sized companies that design and produce plants and equipment for such purposes.

As an example, the value of our annual fish export is more than 23 billion Norwegian kroner (or appr. 3 billion US $). This in fact brings income almost in the same order as our natural gas export, and none of this would be possible without refrigeration.

In the energy sector heat pumps play an important role in producing heating, and ever more often also cooling, in an efficient way on the end user side. Today, there are already more than 20.000 heat pumps in our country, producing around 4,5 TWh of heat. In the years ahead we plan to use heat pumps systematically in our national actions for the development of more sustainable energy systems. The potential output in the future could range between 10 and 15 TWh, thereby reducing CO2-emissions and making electricity available from the end user sector. Further refrigeration will play an important role in transportation and distribution of natural gas from our northern fields.

These are some of the reasons for Norway’s needs to handle this field of tech-nology well, in the whole chain from research and education to industrial activity.

At the moment, this important international industry is in the midst of a historical technological shift, in order to follow up international environmental agreements and reduce the use of working fluids that harm the global environment. The Montreal Protocol of 1987 aims at abolishing ozone depleting substances – such as CFCs, HFCs and HCFCs. During the 1990s, reduction in emissions of gases that cause global warming, the so-called «greenhouse gases», has become equally important. I refer here to the recent Kyoto conference, which ended in the historical Kyoto Protocol which we are now challenged with implementing.

Such political decisions has triggered large international innovation processes to develop new technology and new solutions. I notice with interest that the innovation processes follow two main roads or strategies, one «chemical» and one «natural». The chemical road implies developing new complex chemical substances, for instance with no ozone depleting effect, that may be used in almost the same type of equipment as we use to day. By the «natural» road natural substances that already are circulating in our biosphere, like air, water, ammonia, carbon dioxide (CO2) and hydrocarbons, are selected as working fluids. Technology that makes it possible to build and operate economic, safe and energy efficient plants then has to be developed.

It should be emphasised that we might depend on both strategies in order to realise the common objectives of our international environmental agreements. It is important that countries from the third world get access to environmentally safe technology. Especially important for these countries is that the natural working fluids are widely available to a very low cost.

The chemical industry can help find solutions to our problems in short and medium term. For instance, we could never have reduced the use of CFCs so successfully without the new HFCs that have been developed in an impressive speed. However, the other side of the picture is that such substitue chemicals might create new problems, like the one we are now facing with HFCs as a very potent greenhouse gas. The «natural» road may in some cases need more time to develop new equipment. On the other hand it may bring forward the robust and long-term solutions that we really need to base our future on.

The Norwegian Pollution Control Authorities (SFT) has estimated that the HFCs will count for 3% of the Norwegian emissions of greenhouse gases in the year 2010, even if the emissions from leakage are reduced compared to the state of the art today. Effort should be made to control and limit these emissions.

Taxes is believed to be the most cost efficient tool to control the use of HFCs. It is also assumed to be a better way of promoting a change to natural working fluids than deposit and return systems. The government is currently assessing the feasibility of a tax on HFCs as a basis for a possible future proposal to the Storting. The Norwegian CO2-taxes range from 12 to 50 US$ per tonne CO2. The government has recently proposed that sectors currently excepted from the CO2-tax should pay 100 Norwegian kroner, which equals approximately 13 US$ per tonne. The taxes on HFCs shuld in principle be based on their global warming potential relative to CO2. With global warming potentials in the range 1300-3200 for common HFCs, a rate of 100 Norwegian kroner per tonne CO2 corresponds to a tax 130-320 Norwegian kroner per kg HFC emitted (approx. 18-43 US$/kg).

The technological shift also implies large industrial opportunities, and due to our position within this field in Norway we have tried to utilise our ideas and efforts to participate in this global teamwork development. Norwegian efforts have been concentrated on what has become known as «natural working fluids». By a systematic, long-term strategic teamwork, involving government authorities, industry, research and education, we have developed a substantial activity within this field, especially concerning use of ammonia and carbon dioxide.

Results from this work may already be found at the energy plants at our main airport outside Oslo, or in the new CO2, mobile air conditioning process that Norwegian Hydro and NTNU-SINTEF together strive to introduce on the international market. Further development is also under way in Norwegian companies that will bring new CO2-based solutions on the market.

The knowledge basis of this positive development has been established by goal oriented strategic research, development and education at NTNU-SINTEF in Trondheim. With substantial strategic funding from the Research Council of Norway and Norwegian industry, they have established a strong group of research with Natural Working Fluids as main priority area. This work was initiated by the late professor Gustav Lorentzen, who had the idea of reviving CO2 as a working fluid as early as in 1987.

Gustav Lorentzen was a leading international personality within refrigeration, and he used the last years of his life participating in the process of placing «natural working fluids» as an accepted international strategy and leading star for the international research & development activity. Looking at the large research family gathered here to follow this strategy, we are very proud and thankful to IIR for deciding that his name should hereafter be connected to this biannual tradition so that people all over the world may be inspired by his visions also in the years ahead. It certainly must be a proud moment for the members of Gustav Lorentzens closest family that are present with us here today, to see that their father has laid the basis for such a large international movement following the road of «natural working fluids».

To me, as a politician, it comes as no big surprise that this strategy has gathered such large international interest. To utilise natural compounds which are already circulating in our biosphere sounds like a robust way for future development which is easy to grasp and be enthusiastic about. For instance, although we now that the problem of global warming is closely linked to the steadily increased emissions of CO2, the use of CO2 for useful purposes in refrigeration and heat pump plants seems like a good strategy from an environmental view. Used as a technical gas, CO2 is safe for both the local and global environment. In fact, an annual emission saving of 200 million tons of CO2-equivalents is possible by changing from HFCs to natural refrigerant solutions within mobile and residential application world wide.

Using Norway as an example, about 850.000 cars are expected to be equipped with air conditioning systems by the year 2010. The refrigerant charge of these systems, using HFCs, would represent a global warming contribution of 2,2 million tons of CO2-equivalents. This could be avoided by using CO2 instead.

Applied in heat pumps for hot water, laundry and drying, energy saving of around 75 % has been demonstrated, which would further reduce the global warming impact.

So, the potential advantages of using natural working fluids are large, and the Norwegian authorities would welcome this kind of technology. We will also aim to provide the external conditions necessary to have the technology brought into practical use in our society.

I understand that this international movement organised by the International Institute of Refrigeration, started only 4 years back in Hannover Germany, by professor Horst Kruse and was followed up by another successful meeting in Århus in 1996, organised by our Danish friends. I have also been told that IIR has decided that the next Gustav Lorentzen conference shall be organised in USA in the year 2000.

I am happy that this movement is so strong, because we need the technology that you bring forward by your international teamwork. I would at this occasion like to stress the importance of international co-operation. To bring forward new technology is a large task, which normally takes years of research and development. It is also a process which is difficult to accomplish in the laboratories of one country alone. To be successful, we need ideas and effort from people all over the world. However, with the communication technology available today, and by working systematically with clear and common goals, we may carry out this process in a shorter time than was possible in the past.

This is proven by the astonishing speed and momentum with which this research family has created, since the start only 4 years back. At that time, some people were pessimistic about the possibilities of using CO2 as a working fluid because modern equipment was not available. Today this picture has changed completely, and CO2-plants are now being realised as prototypes all around the world. It may even be bought on the commercial market. Just before the opening, I had the privilege of being shown a city bus from Germany that is equipped with a CO2 air conditioning plant.

As you know the world is facing large problems in the process of building a more sustainable society, but there are also a lot of solutions being brought forward. 4 years ago authorities and people in general were not aware of the possibilities of «natural working fluids». Today we may bring these options into our planning.

So the society really looks forward to see the results from your work in the years ahead. I personally also would like to wish all the participants success in their work. May it bring good solutions for the environment and new opportunities for a sustainable industry. I wish you all a successful conference and a pleasant stay in Norway.

With these words I would like to declare the third international conference on Natural Working Fluids and the first IIR-Gustav Lorentzen Conference opened. Thank you !