What are you going to do with all those R-22 units you’ve been installing and servicing? Those units could last for years to come. Well, the industry has come up with a number of refrigerants their manufacturers say can be retrofitted into existing R-22 systems.

At the University of Oregon, 20 elliptical machines have been retrofitted so they can be connected to the electrical grid and electricity can be generated when they are in use. But, the project is more of a demonstration of environmental concern.

My April 6 column on why it doesn’t matter whom to believe in the climate change debate touched off a bit of e-mail dialogue between several writers and myself. In that column, I cited some research from the 1970s predicting global cooling, then noted that the focus shifted more to global warming in the 1980s.

A trip to Chicago for the National Restaurant Association trade show a while ago proved to be a commuting adventure - which thankfully had a plan B. The 80-mile trip from my hometown to downtown Chicago is usually done on a non-stop regional bus and lasts a couple of hours.

There is only one thing you need to know about California: The state loves all things green - especially solar power. Only thing is, when you are a refrigeration contractor, you can do green but how can you harness the hot sun and create cold? According to C&L Refrigeration of Brea, Calif., it can be done and they did it.

I know there is an upfront cost for installing green HVACR technology. But is there also a premium charge for maintaining green equipment?

The radio show Car Talk on National Public Radio has on its Website (www.cars.com) a number of “famous last words,” several of which can pertain to the daily lives of service technicians.

Reclaimers do not see large amounts of refrigerant coming to them. They admit the return process is a work in progress and, like with anything new, it has both cost and learning curve issues. But it is just those cost and learning curve issues that are causing contractors not to put their refrigerant into the reclaim pipeline to any great extent.

Talk to reclaimers, wholesalers and, in fact, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and they will tell you contractors need to do a better job of bringing in HCFC-22 for reclamation to avoid a shortfall of the refrigerant by as early as 2010. Talk to many contractors and they will tell you the incentives to submit their refrigerant for reclaim just aren’t there yet.

The linkage between the refrigerants ammonia and CO2 took another step forward with the announcement at the most recent International Institute of Ammonia Refrigeration (IIAR) Annual Conference and Exhibition in Dallas that “significant progress has been made during the past year on a new CO2 handbook.”