Uploaded February 2024 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
One company's quest to find and destroy CFCs, HCFCs, and HFC refrigerants - and methane-leaking wells - as fast as possible. These gases superheat the atmosphere much more than an equivalent amount of carbon dioxide (CO2).
Tradewater: tradewater.us/offsetnow
Subscribe to TDC: youtube.com/TheDailyConversation
Refrigerant animation courtesy of youtube.com/@GeniusEngineering
Information sources:
CA.Gov High GWP Fact Sheet ww2.arb.ca.gov/resources/documents/high-gwp-refrigerants
EPA Refrigerant Phaseout epa.gov/ods-phaseout#:~:text=Class%20II%20substances%20are%20all,phased%20out%20as%20of%202020.
EPA HCF Phasedown epa.gov/climate-hfcs-reduction/frequent-questions-phasedown-hydrofluorocarbons#:~:text=Consistent%20with%20the%20AIM%20Act,listed%20in%20the%20AIM%20Act.
Difference between refrigerants coldroommaster.com/cold-room-refrigerant-system
EPA: How to Properly dispose of refrigerants epa.gov/sites/default/files/documents/ConstrAndDemo_EquipDisposal.pdf
EPA: Understanding Global Warming Potential epa.gov/ghgemissions/understanding-global-warming-potentials#:~:text=Methane%20(CH4)%20is%20estimated,27%2D30%20over%20100%20years.
International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) AR6 Report https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6_WGI_Chapter_07_Supplementary_Material.pdf
0:00 The Problem
1:00 Acquiring Refrigerants
3:40 The Destruction Process
4:49 Founding Tradewater
5:30 A Climate-First Mission
6:35 Going International
8:26 Capping Methane Leaks
Script:
The secret sauce inside this heat pump, your fridge, and air conditioner, is the refrigerant that circulates inside, expanding and compressing to move heat from one space to another.
But if this chemical escapes it’s a problem because it heats the atmosphere much more than an equivalent amount of Carbon Dioxide. [show how many times CO2]
So, when an appliance reaches the end of its life cycle, the refrigerant is - hopefully - recovered into canisters that often get left around to degrade and leak.
[Show clip from Honduras of canister leaking]
Few people understand how big of a disaster it is when this happens.
Luckily, the most potent warming gasses are no longer produced or are being phased down, but because there’s no easy way to properly get rid of it, there are probably many million appliances and tanks full of it still out there.
Fortunately, one company has made it their mission to hunt down these canisters - these climate grenades - and safely disarm them.
To learn more, I visited them in Chicago.
“There’s no regulatory obligation to destroy this stuff, and that’s a role we can come in and help fill.”
Valeria leads a team that travels across America finding refrigerants and paying people cash for them. She took me along on a quick local pick-up.
We didn’t want to freak the customer out by filming them in front of their house, but back at the warehouse, I saw the goods.
Inside, I found Moises working on the next step.
How refrigerant gases are destroyed.
The team stores the refrigerants in these larger tanks until they’ve aggregated enough to fill this beast.
That happens at a facility like this one that superheats the refrigerant.
“Rotary kiln incineration…we are literally burning this gas to break down the chemical bonds and rendering the component parts essentially inert.”
When I sat down with Tradewater’s founders at Jackson Park, I learned this work started on a much smaller scale.
[Explaining carbon offset credit, California Cap and Trade, and how the company makes money]
[Gabe discusses how refrigerants are usually collected and destroyed, and how TW’s climate-first approach is different]
[Tim discussing growth]
With its US operation set up and scaling quickly, the team is working internationally to make an even bigger impact, but that comes with some serious challenges.
[Gabe on navigating each country’s different systems]
Back in the US, Tradewater has begun partnering with state governments to stop another dangerous gas from escaping: the methane spewing out of millions of uncapped, orphaned oil and gas wells, emissions that have a warming potential 81.2 times that of CO2 over a 20 year period.
The team is leveraging the skills of former oil and gas industry workers who get this specialized job done right.
[These gasses cannot be sequestered once released]
Thanks for watching, make sure you’re subscribed here to catch the next climate solution I profile.
One company's quest to find and destroy CFCs, HCFCs, and HFC refrigerants - and methane-leaking wells - as fast as possible. These gases superheat the atmosphere much more than an equivalent amount of carbon dioxide (CO2).
Tradewater: tradewater.us/offsetnow
Subscribe to TDC: youtube.com/TheDailyConversation
Refrigerant animation courtesy of youtube.com/@GeniusEngineering
Information sources:
CA.Gov High GWP Fact Sheet ww2.arb.ca.gov/resources/documents/high-gwp-refrigerants
EPA Refrigerant Phaseout epa.gov/ods-phaseout#:~:text=Class%20II%20substances%20are%20all,phased%20out%20as%20of%202020.
EPA HCF Phasedown epa.gov/climate-hfcs-reduction/frequent-questions-phasedown-hydrofluorocarbons#:~:text=Consistent%20with%20the%20AIM%20Act,listed%20in%20the%20AIM%20Act.
Difference between refrigerants coldroommaster.com/cold-room-refrigerant-system
EPA: How to Properly dispose of refrigerants epa.gov/sites/default/files/documents/ConstrAndDemo_EquipDisposal.pdf
EPA: Understanding Global Warming Potential epa.gov/ghgemissions/understanding-global-warming-potentials#:~:text=Methane%20(CH4)%20is%20estimated,27%2D30%20over%20100%20years.
International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) AR6 Report https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6_WGI_Chapter_07_Supplementary_Material.pdf
0:00 The Problem
1:00 Acquiring Refrigerants
3:40 The Destruction Process
4:49 Founding Tradewater
5:30 A Climate-First Mission
6:35 Going International
8:26 Capping Methane Leaks
Script:
The secret sauce inside this heat pump, your fridge, and air conditioner, is the refrigerant that circulates inside, expanding and compressing to move heat from one space to another.
But if this chemical escapes it’s a problem because it heats the atmosphere much more than an equivalent amount of Carbon Dioxide. [show how many times CO2]
So, when an appliance reaches the end of its life cycle, the refrigerant is - hopefully - recovered into canisters that often get left around to degrade and leak.
[Show clip from Honduras of canister leaking]
Few people understand how big of a disaster it is when this happens.
Luckily, the most potent warming gasses are no longer produced or are being phased down, but because there’s no easy way to properly get rid of it, there are probably many million appliances and tanks full of it still out there.
Fortunately, one company has made it their mission to hunt down these canisters - these climate grenades - and safely disarm them.
To learn more, I visited them in Chicago.
“There’s no regulatory obligation to destroy this stuff, and that’s a role we can come in and help fill.”
Valeria leads a team that travels across America finding refrigerants and paying people cash for them. She took me along on a quick local pick-up.
We didn’t want to freak the customer out by filming them in front of their house, but back at the warehouse, I saw the goods.
Inside, I found Moises working on the next step.
How refrigerant gases are destroyed.
The team stores the refrigerants in these larger tanks until they’ve aggregated enough to fill this beast.
That happens at a facility like this one that superheats the refrigerant.
“Rotary kiln incineration…we are literally burning this gas to break down the chemical bonds and rendering the component parts essentially inert.”
When I sat down with Tradewater’s founders at Jackson Park, I learned this work started on a much smaller scale.
[Explaining carbon offset credit, California Cap and Trade, and how the company makes money]
[Gabe discusses how refrigerants are usually collected and destroyed, and how TW’s climate-first approach is different]
[Tim discussing growth]
With its US operation set up and scaling quickly, the team is working internationally to make an even bigger impact, but that comes with some serious challenges.
[Gabe on navigating each country’s different systems]
Back in the US, Tradewater has begun partnering with state governments to stop another dangerous gas from escaping: the methane spewing out of millions of uncapped, orphaned oil and gas wells, emissions that have a warming potential 81.2 times that of CO2 over a 20 year period.
The team is leveraging the skills of former oil and gas industry workers who get this specialized job done right.
[These gasses cannot be sequestered once released]
Thanks for watching, make sure you’re subscribed here to catch the next climate solution I profile.
![How America Changed Under Obama [A Data Analysis]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/y3uuX8Jtqxw/mqdefault.jpg "How America Changed Under Obama [A Data Analysis]
A data-driven look at how the U.S. changed under the presidency of Barack Obama.
FB for daily news: http://www.facebook.com/thedailyconversation
http://www.twitter.com/thedailyconvo
Subscribe to TDC: https://www.youtube.com/TheDailyConversation/
Data courtesy of Pew Research Center: http://pewrsr.ch/2jzFOHy
Researched, written, narrated and produced by Bryce Plank
Video edited by Robin West
Music: Particles Unfolding by Glimpse: https://soundcloud.com/glimpse_official/particles_unfolding
Electro Sketch by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
Source: http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/?keywords=electro+sketch&Search=Search
Artist: http://incompetech.com/
Script:
In 2008, Barack Obama was the change candidate. This is a data-driven look at how much America transformed during his eight years as our President. Pause or rewind the video if you need more time with any of the data.
After spiking during the Great Recession, the unemployment rate is below 5% today.
And the stock market has more than doubled.
Obamacare, the Affordable Care Act, plunged the percentage of adults without health insurance to the lowest level in history.
While the share of income going to the top 1% has continued to increase, average Americans saw the biggest jump in their household income ever in 2015, and the biggest drop in poverty since the great society programs of the 1960’s.
The violent crime rate is down almost 20% from when Obama took office.
America’s image abroad was lifted as President Obama turned away from the policies of George W. Bush and toward a more active pursuit of diplomacy to solve problems.
Today, there are less than 15,000 troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, compared to the 175,000 when he took office.
But this was coupled with Americans themselves becoming more wary of international engagement.
On energy, the Obama administration has reduced carbon emissions by 9.4%, greatly expanded wind and solar power, and cut America’s dependence on foreign oil by more than half.
In 2015, for the first time since at least 1980, the number of inmates in federal prisons actually declined.
8 states have now legalized marijuana and - for first time - a majority of Americans overall support legalization.
A majority of Americans also favor the Supreme Court’s ruling that essentially legalized same-sex marriage nationwide.
Culturally, the biggest change came when Apple released the first iPhone during Obama’s campaign for the democratic nomination in 2007. In the decade since, smartphone use has exploded and about half of all Americans now own a tablet too.
But all that technology has led to a constant stream of stories and images of violence and victimization, especially at the hands of police, seen all over the social media feeds of many Americans, that’s led to a widespread perception that race relations have deteriorated.
Millennials are now the nation’s largest living generation and the biggest potential voting block.
For the first time in 2013, the majority of newborn babies were racial or ethnic minorities, and a record-high 12% of newlyweds married someone of a different race.
Despite some people’s perception, the past seven years has seen little change in the number of unauthorized immigrants living in the United States, there was actually a net loss of over 100,000 immigrants who went back to Mexico.
The biggest religious trend during Obama’s presidency is the rise of those claiming no religion at all a group now making up a quarter of the population, and 35% of millennials.
As you can see from President Obama’s approval ratings among democrats and republicans, modern America has never been so divided along partisan lines.
Far more democrats than republicans now say immigrants strengthen the country; and when it comes to guns, far more republicans now think we should prioritize gun rights over gun control.
For various reasons, both democrats and republicans have much less faith in government. Most Americans didn’t think the government’s actions after the financial crisis helped them.
On national security, after the horrific terrorist attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, for the first time since 9/11, the government’s job rating on terrorism turned negative.
And, driven by the campaign of Donald Trump, Republicans have suddenly become anti-free trade and globalization. As you can see, Democrats’ views have remained roughly the same.
Only one-third of Americans used social media in 2008, but by 2015 that rate was 75%.
Obama was also the first Internet video president, as this media genre came of age during his time in office. YouTube now has over a billion users.
In 2016, more American adults learned about the presidential election through social media than through print newspapers, with seven-in-ten getting their news through a mobile device.")
