According to ARI, the video describes how HVACR equipment has been developed that helps save energy, reduce the growth of global warming gases, and make life better for people around the world. The video, says ARI, explains how energy-efficient equipment using safe refrigerants has made possible products and services that range from fresh food shipped from distant markets to refrigerated medicines and vaccines, 24-hour surgical suites, computer chips, productivity enhanced buildings, and protection from killer heat waves.

The video includes comments from a blood bank director, a shopping mall engineer, a museum curator, and Francois Billiard, director of the International Institute of Refrigeration (IIR), headquartered in Paris.

Billiard estimates that 5 billion people will benefit from comfort cooling and refrigeration. One key benefit is providing the refrigeration necessary to preserve vaccines.

According to the video, one of the major improvements made in refrigeration and air conditioning is the use of hydrofluorocarbons - or HFCs - a refrigerant being used to replace R-22 systems, which have been used for decades for comfort cooling and commercial refrigeration.

"Best of all, HFCs can be recovered and re-used," says the video, "just like the recycling of metal, paper, and plastic. And because these redesigned systems are more efficient, they consume less energy from carbon dioxide-producing electrical generating plants. That helps the environment."

The video was sent to nearly 1,400 schools in the United States that offer training in HVACR.

The video is available in DVD or VHS format at $5 each by writing to ARI at 4100 North Fairfax Drive, Suite 200, Arlington, VA 22203, or it can be ordered at ARI's online bookstore at www.ari.org.

Publication date: 02/23/2004