At the 26,000-square-foot Wal-Mart SuperCenter in Aurora, Colo., a propylene glycol-based heat transfer fluid is being used in a secondary-loop refrigeration system. The system is designed to reduce the use of refrigerant gas and limit the potential for leaks into the environment.

Contractors and technicians who work on supermarket refrigeration equipment will want to take note of the opening of potentially more than 50 Tesco Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Markets for they could well signal what could be trends in store size, as well as both stationary and transport refrigeration.

Over on the domestic refrigeration side, there's been much ado about old refrigerators. The issue has been safely removing refrigerants that may still be in an old unit. One of the most recent developments is the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) voluntary Responsible Appliance Disposal (RAD) Program.

Old familiar refrigerants: being phased-out. New refrigerants: We don’t know much about them. And, figuring out the life span of refrigerants both old and new. These are issues facing techs as a result of another tumultuous year concerning the gases they cart around in service vans, and work with throughout the day.

Sustainability will become - if it hasn’t already - the big buzzword in HVACR, according to many in the industry, including contractors and manufacturers. It will become what energy conservation was during the 1970s, recovery-recycling in the 80s, brownouts-blackouts in the 90s, and 13 SEER in recent years. And contractors are finding themselves as part of the sustainability equation.

Cold beer and ice go together. But when it comes to the every other year show of the North American Association of Food Equipment Manufacturers (NAFEM), there is a lot more to both technologies than just dropping kegs or cans of beer into buckets of ice.

Who has the tougher time finding qualified technicians - those who hire in the HVAC sector or their counterparts in refrigeration? As far as the refrigeration folks are concerned, there is no contest. Those in the refrigeration sector say they have more trouble.

When Ed Swisher returned the phone call notifying him that he had earned Honorable Mention honors in the Best Instructor competition sponsored by The NEWS and the Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Institute, he was riding shotgun in a service van being driven by one of his students.

For today’s refrigeration contractors, the research for next generation technology that may most directly affect them concerns carbon dioxide (CO2), also known as R-744, specifically and supermarket applications in general.

Going green is a message contractors are going to be hearing over and over again from their customers, according to presenters at the first-ever Green Opportunities Conference of the Mechanical Contractors Association of America. And conference speakers all agreed that going green is the right thing to do from both an environmental and business standpoint.