Power Issues

As mentioned in "advances in refrigeration technology", refrigeration technology has developed greatly in about a century. However, the problem was that the power consumption increased.

First of all, let's compare the electricity bill of the old refrigerator and the latest refrigerator. The table below compares the electricity bill for refrigerators made in 2005 and refrigerators made in 2020.

There is a difference of about 390 kWh compared to the latest one and the old one, and there is more than twice the difference with the electricity bill. Looking at the history of freezers, refrigeration technology began to spread in the middle of the Taisho era to rapidly freeze seafood both in Japan and overseas.

After the war, due to the increase in food demand and economic growth, the demand for well-preserved freezers began to increase.

As the period of rapid economic growth is about to be achieved, electric freezers are called "three sacred treasures" along with black-and-white TVs and washing machines, and they spread explosively.

On the other hand, the use of a large amount of freon was a problem behind the evolution of refrigeration technology. To address this issue, the Montreal Protocol was adopted in 1987, and the use of freon that was used was gradually released.

Also, in the 2000s, with advances in insulation materials, products with more energy conservation awareness began to be released. As we evolved like this, the price of the product itself became cheaper, and it spread to more people.

While refrigeration technology is evolving, the earth is now causing many problems, including global warming and resource depletion caused by the destruction of the ozone layer by freon as a premise, refrigerators often use freon as refrigerants as heat transfer. When freon is released into the atmosphere, they are not decomposed in the troposphere and rises to the stratosphere. Then, chlorine is generated by decomposing by ultraviolet rays from the sun, and it destroys the ozone layer (the one that ultraviolet rays are absorbed in the stratosphere far above, and the living thing is protected). When the ozone layer is destroyed and ultraviolet rays increase, skin cancer and cataracts are likely to occur, and not only can you easily go out, but also the growth of plants will deteriorate, and there is a possibility that food shortages will occur all over the world. it is important to eliminate the release of freon and recover them while using refrigeration equipment.

Food shortages around the world...?! It's hard!