Chinese Fridges Keep Food and the Planet Cool.

An international project aims to boost the manufacture and purchase of green refrigerators--not those 1970s-style avocado-green fridges, but environmentally friendly refrigerators. According to the China State Statistical Bureau, over 12 million refrigerators will be manufactured for the Chinese market this year, and with them--at least, with traditional refrigerators--comes environmental pollution from greenhouse gases and ozone-depleting chemicals.

Refrigerators present a two-fold blow to the environment. First, they have traditionally relied on chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) for use both as coolants and as an ingredient in the foam insulation that encases the storage compartment. During production and use, CFCs leak into the air. Because they are so chemically stable, they are swept intact into the stratosphere, where they are broken down by ultraviolet radiation from the sun, releasing chlorine atoms that react with and degrade ozone. Second, the generation of electric power by burning fossil fuels causes massive emissions of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide ([CO.sub.2]). Currently, coal-fired plants provide some 80% of China's electricity.

The first part of the China CFC-Free Energy-Efficient Refrigerator Project, begun in 1989, involved the development of a prototype refrigerator that used no CFCs and incorporated energy efficiency measures, yielding a model that works on 50% less energy than a conventional refrigerator of the same size. After the prototype was tested for a year in 100 households, Chinese officials felt confident to launch the second phase--a complete market transformation.

This second phase was launched in Beijing on 10 December 1999. Scheduled to take five years, this phase will focus on offering technical assistance and incentives to compressor and refrigerator manufacturers to produce energy-efficient designs and modifications and conversion of current factory production lines. The project also aims to establish national efficiency standards and a national labeling program and to offer consumer education on the benefits of the new refrigerators. Finally, the project includes plans to implement a consumer buyback and recycling program for older model refrigerators. The goal is to reduce [CO.sub.2] emissions by 100 million metric tons over the life of refrigerators produced from 2002 to 2012.

The number of refrigerators purchased in China has increased dramatically in the last 15 years, thanks to a changing Chinese lifestyle and rising affluence. The increase in the ownership of domestic appliances is a major factor driving the surge in residential electricity consumption, according to The Sino-U.S. CFC-Free Super-Efficient Refrigerator Project Progress Report: Prototype Design & Testing, published in 1997 by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

The second phase of the $40 million project is cofunded by the Chinese government and industry and the Global Environment Facility (GEF), a United Nations--administered fund established after the first Rio Conference on Climate Change to promote energy efficiency, biodiversity, and climate protection in the developing world. Formulated as a joint endeavor of the Chinese government and industry, the U.S. EPA, and the Environmental Energy Technologies Division of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, California, the project is being implemented by the United Nations Development Programme and China's State Environmental Protection Administration.

The project stems from China's bid to join the Montreal Protocol on Substances That Deplete the Ozone Layer, an international treaty intended to protect the stratospheric ozone layer from further damage by compounds such as CFCs. Nandita Mongia, technical advisor and regional coordinator for Asia-Pacific at the GEF, says, "The Montreal Protocol funds any project that brings down CFCs, whereas GEF funds projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions. On the China project, both are combined." For manufacturers, implementing new energy efficiency measures alongside the CFC phaseout allows them to reduce the total investment in retooling and production-line conversion.

David Fridley, a staff scientist in the Berkeley Lab Environmental Energy Technologies Division who managed the first phase of the refrigerator project, says, "I think the goals of the project laid out in the original application are quite conservative in retrospect. Given the enthusiasm of the manufacturers for energy efficiency as a competitive tool--the market in China is enormously oversupplied, so competition is fierce--I believe the market share for the efficient fridges could easily reach 40% during this period, effectively doubling the savings."