製冷「新」法 | 更節能環保的二氧化碳製冷

M&M Carnot 推廣二氧化碳作為低溫室效應製冷劑

M&M Carnot promotes CO2 as a low-greenhouse refrigerant

By Peter Judge

譯者說

R744——二氧化碳製冷劑的新名字。相比普通製冷劑，二氧化碳製冷劑更為節能，更為環保，不會產生溫室氣體，有望在未來數據中心製冷系統中推廣使用。

美加製冷專家M&M Carnot表示，數據中心應該使用二氧化碳製冷技術，以減少對環境的影響。

US-Canadian cooling specialist M&M Carnot says data centers should move to cooling their data centers with CO2, to reduce their environmental impact.

該公司表示，二氧化碳的全球變暖潛力比傳統製冷劑要低得多，傳統製冷劑正在全球逐步淘汰。根據本月發佈的一份指南，二氧化碳可以用於同樣類型的製冷系統中，通過類似的膨脹和壓縮循環過程來有效地製冷。

The company says CO2 has a much lower global warming potential than traditional refrigerants, which are being phased out around the world. CO2 can be used in the same sort of chillers, going through a similar expansion and condensation cycle to remove heat efficiently, according to a guide published this month.

根據國際協議的最新情況，世界各國政府正在逐步淘汰目前的氫氟烴製冷劑，如R134a和R410A。《蒙特利爾議定書》最初定於1987年，目的是限制使用上一代消耗臭氧層的製冷劑，並尋找到了新的製冷劑，以代替導致全球變暖的製冷劑。

Governments around the world are phasing out current HFC refrigerants such as R134a and R410A, according to updates to international agreements. The Montreal Protocol was originally set in 1987 to stamp out a previous generation of refrigerants that depleted the ozone layer, and has been updated to remove their replacements, which cause global warming.

在美國，新的製冷劑從2024年1月起就不能使用氫氟烴了。

In the US, new chillers cannot use HFCs from January 2024.

在冷水機組和電冰箱中，像氫氟烴這樣的工作流體會蒸發並冷凝。一些人認為氫氟烴可以被水取代，但另一些人早在2006年就提出了二氧化碳。在國際化學品清單中，二氧化碳被稱為R744。

In chillers and refrigerators, a working fluid such as an HFC evaporates and condenses. Some have suggested that HFCs can be replaced by water, but others have proposed CO2, as long ago as 2006. In international chemical listings, CO2 is referred to as R744.

這是違反常識的，因為二氧化碳是最終的溫室氣體，但氫氟烴的全球變暖影響比二氧化碳大數千倍。Nautilus Data公司的首席科學家Arnold Magcale認為，將二氧化碳隔離在製冷系統中可能會使數據中心的碳排放減少：「我們可以成為碳封存的引領者，」他在2022年3月告訴DCD。

This is counterintuitive, as CO2 is the definitive greenhouse gas, but HFCs have a global warming effect thousands of times larger than CO2. Arnold Magcale, the chief scientist of Nautilus Data, has suggested that sequestering CO2 in cooling systems could make data centers carbon negative: "We could be the leaders in carbon sequestration," he told DCD in March 2022.

總部位於加拿大的Carnot製冷公司自2012年以來一直在向數據中心運送一系列二氧化碳制冷機，並於2019年被美國M&M製冷公司收購。該公司聲稱，除了降低冷水機組對環境的影響，二氧化碳還能實現更高效的系統，可以節省傳統系統90%的能源消耗。

Carnot Refrigeration, based in Canada, has been shipping the Aquilon range of CO2-based chillers to data centers since 2012, and was bought by US-based M&M Refrigeration in 2019. The company claims that as well as lowering the environmental impact of a chiller, CO2 makes for more efficient systems, which can save 90 percent of the energy consumption of conventional systems.

這份名為「製冷劑限制：你的數據中心準備好過渡了嗎？」的報告解釋了技術和監管背景，並包括一個研究案例，魁北克的一個數據中心在切換到基於二氧化碳製冷的系統時，用於冷卻的能源減少了60%。該指南鏈接自R744，一個專門基於二氧化碳製冷的網站。

The report, 「Refrigerant Restrictions: Is Your Data Center Ready for the Transition?,」 explains the technology and regulatory background and includes a case study in which a Quebec data center reported a 60 percent reduction in the energy used in cooling, when it switched to the CO2-based system. The guide was linked from R744, a website dedicated to CO2-based refrigeration.

卡諾製冷公司總裁Marc-André Lesmerises說：「這份白皮書展示了CRAC設備使用二氧化碳作為製冷劑，以改進數據中心工藝流程，降低成本，並減少使用有高全球變暖隱患的設備。」「我們知道，做出這一改變表明了對環境的承諾，同時幫助我們的數據中心客戶找到一個製冷技術的解決方案，滿足他們的需求也是非常令人興奮的。」

「This white paper demonstrates how CRAC equipment using CO2 as a refrigerant improves data center processes, reduces their costs and reduces the use of equipment with high global warming potential,」 said Marc-André Lesmerises, president of Carnot Refrigeration. 「We know that making this change demonstrates a commitment to the environment and it』s exciting to help our data center customers find a solution to cool their data centers that meets their needs and the needs of the planet.」