Month: January 2024

The arctic blast that we’ve seen in the U.S. over the past week is a prime example of the competing challenges we face in addressing climate change: we must meet increased demand for high-performance heating and cooling amid extreme temperatures while minimizing our environmental impact.

This intersection of performance and sustainability is where my business and the broader HVACR industry sits—delivering climate-friendly, energy efficient, safe solutions for everything from the cold chain to residential heat pumps and even industrial waste heat recovery. As I travel to Chicago to join HVAC leaders from across the value chain at the annual AHR Expo, I couldn’t help but reflect on how far we’ve come and how excited I am to share our progress and vision for the future.

Chemours manufactures a portfolio of innovative thermal management solutions, including Opteon™ refrigerants, our family of low global warming potential (GWP) hydrofluoroolefins (HFOs) and blends. Aside from enabling many aspects of modern life, these refrigerants are uniquely capable of meeting growing demands on heating and cooling while both enabling energy efficiency and circularity benefits—areas where many alternatives fall short.

Driving Sustainable Innovation

Tackling climate change demands action, which is why we are not interested in maintaining the status quo. Instead, we’re advancing innovation to meet the market needs of today and the opportunities of tomorrow with minimal impact on our planet. In fact, last year we unveiled our three-horizon innovation roadmap at the AHR Expo, which includes commercial adoption, new optimized blend collaboration, and next-generation product development. Over the past 12-months, our team has worked tirelessly—alongside industry—to advance each horizon and continue to raise the bar for sustainability in our industry.

Horizon One: Adoption This horizon represents our current reality and focuses on advancing the commercial adoption of our existing Opteon™ XL and XP series. These products balance top-tier performance with sustainability and ease of transition, offering non- or mildly flammable refrigerants with zero ozone depletion potential (ODP) and low GWP. To date, we’re seeing strong market adoption (e.g., professional ice rinks, US beverage distributor, and EU supermarket) and are expanding our capacity, conducting industry trainings, and supporting codes and standards efforts to ease and facilitate adoption of this safe, proven technology across applications.

Horizon Two: Innovative Blends

The second horizon, which will run through 2025, leverages partnerships with customers, suppliers, and national labs to identify optimized refrigerant blends. It strives toward better performance and lower GWPs to ensure our products anticipate customer needs and remain steps ahead of evolving regulations. Our teams are working hand-in-hand with OEMs and industry associations to understand the critical characteristics necessary to deliver the solutions our customers need across regions, climates, and applications.

Horizon Three: Next Generation

Last, but certainly not least, the third horizon includes the development of a next-generation thermal management solution. This technology is intended to deliver even greater value for customers, exceed industry standards, and surpass long-term regulatory requirements. The refrigerant will need to strike the ideal balance between performance, safety, degradation profile, and environmental impact. By leveraging strategic partnerships, the latest technological advances, and parallel workstreams, we are safely and methodically accelerating innovation. We remain confident in our ability to make these solutions available for customer qualification in 2025, ushering in a new era of environmental stewardship and technological progress.

We Cannot Do It Alone

While there is still plenty of work to be done, I could not be more proud or excited about our progress against this bold roadmap. As we move ahead, we recognize that our initiatives are part of a larger, industry journey toward sustainable progress and that we cannot do this alone. I invite each of you—our customers, partners, and industry peers—to join us. I look forward to helping shape a more sustainable thermal management future alongside you!

Joe Martinko is the President of Thermal & Specialized Solutions (TSS) at Chemours. TSS is a market leader in producing refrigerants, thermal management solutions, propellants, blowing agents, and specialty solvents. Building on deep knowledge of refrigerants dating back to the commercial introduction of Freon™ in 1930, Chemours TSS business is leading the way in the development of sustainable technologies like Opteon™, one of the world’s lowest global warming potential (GWP) refrigerant brands.

View original content here.

MEMPHIS, Tenn., January 22, 2024 /3BL/ – On National Wreaths Across America Day, Saturday, December 16, 2023, International Paper (IP) was proud to support Wreaths Across America (WAA) in remembrance to honor our veterans. IP donated $50,000 to sponsor nearly 3,000 wreaths, 16,000 wreath boxes, aid in transportation to Arlington National Cemetery (ANC) and volunteers to lay wreaths at headstones of our nation’s fallen heroes at national cemeteries across the nation. WAA has been a loyal customer of IP’s Auburn Box Plant for more than 13 years, and each year, IP produces nearly 350,000 boxes for the program. Now, as we look back on Wreaths Out Day, January 20, 2024, the annual removal of wreaths at ANC marks another milestone of all efforts made by those who have served.

“The year-round mission to Remember, Honor and Teach grows each year all across the country, thanks to the many hearts and hands that help share it and support it,” said Karen Worcester, executive director, Wreaths Across America. “International Paper has long played an important part in this program, and has grown their support as we have grown, for which we are very grateful.”

As part of IP’s dedication to sustainability, our team works with a national waste-to-energy company to ensure the wreaths do not end up in landfills and coordinates the recovery and recycling of the wreath boxes at ANC and three national cemeteries in Long Island, New York. This is a smart environmental decision and helps reduce one of the nonprofit’s largest expenses. Dave Kumar, an IP retiree, leads these recycling efforts and he estimates that IP and a team of more than 250 volunteers recycled 54 tons of boxes from these locations alone.

IP’s wreath sponsorship was allocated across three locations: in Memphis, Tenn., more than 650 wreaths were sponsored at West Tennessee National Cemetery, 1000 were sponsored at Memphis National Cemetery, and at ANC, 1,275 wreaths were placed on the graves of veterans at rest. In 2023, 30,000 visitors placed nearly 260,000 wreaths at ANC. Overall, WAA saw volunteers across more than 4,225 participating locations, home and abroad. IP is proud to support WAA’s mission to remember the fallen, honor those who serve and their families, and teach the next generation about the value of our freedom in communities across the United States.

“International Paper is proud to be a partner and supporter of Wreaths Across America,” said Dr. Alissa Campbell Shaw, senior manager, Global Community Engagement. “This day is an important tradition to commemorate our fallen heroes, and we are honored to be a part of this special day,”

Wreaths Across America has become such a valued tradition that it is recognized by the U.S. Congress. U.S. Senators Susan Collins and Angus King introduced an unanimously passed bipartisan resolution to designate Saturday, December 16, 2023, as Wreaths Across America Day. International Paper is honored to contribute to WAA’s mission year after year to recognize the sacrifices made for our freedom by those who have served. To learn more about IP and WAA continued partnership, click here.

About International Paper

International Paper (NYSE: IP) is a global producer of planet-friendly packaging, pulp and other fiber-based products, and one of North America’s largest recyclers. Headquartered in Memphis, Tenn., we employ approximately 39,000 colleagues globally who are committed to creating what’s next. We serve customers worldwide, with manufacturing operations in North America, Latin America, North Africa and Europe. Net sales for 2022 were $21.2 billion. Additional information can be found by visiting InternationalPaper.com.

Pepco | The Source

Beneath the hustle and bustle of streets in the District of Columbia and portions of Maryland is an underground labyrinth of cables and equipment that provide power to our Pepco customers. More than 7,000 miles of cable weave through tunnels to form the foundation of a reliable local energy grid, helping support fewer interruptions from weather with less maintenance cost and no visual clutter of utility poles and cables overhead.

Work is underway to make our underground local energy grid even more reliable. In 2022, we began installing state of the art switches that will further limit outage impacts for our customers.

The switches function like a circuit breaker in your home, but on a much larger scale. These devices can tell if there’s a failure and automatically limit the impact caused from a single fault. Once the switch is activated, the Pepco system operator is instantly notified and can work to limit the disruption remotely by quickly and safely re-routing power to unaffected areas of the circuit, minimizing both the frequency and duration of power outages.

“The collaboration between various engineering, project management, and field construction teams has set this project up for success throughout the various stages of execution” said Robert Spelman, senior manager of Underground Construction and Maintenance for Pepco. “This innovative project demonstrates our commitment to improving the customer experience and will help set the stage for future automation in the underground distribution system to continue to provide safe and reliable service.”

Pepco crews successfully installed and energized six of these switches in 2023, with 15 more scheduled for installation this year across our service region. As the program expands, eighteen switches will be installed per year over the next five years. This is just one of several projects underway to bring reliable service to our customers. To learn more about these efforts visit our current reliability projects website.