Save Gas, Reduce Emissions with Better A/C

The National Renewable Energy Laboratory have set their sights on one of the least efficient systems in modern automobiles: the air conditioning. The laboratory says 6% of the total amount of fuel consumed in the U.S. — about seven billion gallons, if you can imagine — is used to run the a/c.  The EPA piles on the bad news by reporting that leaky automotive air conditioning units pump 50 million metric tons of CO2 into the air each year.

That’s where the NREL is hoping to make a difference. According to a post on the New York Times’ “Wheels” blog, engineers are hoping to improve the a/c in cars by as much as a third. If they succeed, it could be a big step toward the new CAFE standards, which require an average fuel efficiency of 35.5 mpg by 2016.