The Year We Were Hot for Supercold Freezers
You never know how essential things such as air scrubbers and deep freezers are until you really need them. And in 2020, we really needed them.
Dry ice is now a hot commodity — as are freezers that help prolong its shelf-life.
Photographer: Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images
The pandemic has given many of us a new appreciation for things we took for granted before Covid-19: time with friends and family, a night out at a restaurant, travel … and yes, even indoor air quality.
Despite my being a columnist covering the industrial sector, I didn’t spend much time thinking about ventilation pre-pandemic, nor was I overly preoccupied with the existence of technology that can produce temperatures as low as -70 degrees Celsius — colder than the average temperature on Mars, but also the conditions needed to keep Pfizer Inc.’s Covid-19 vaccine stable. Now I think about both of those things all the time. And so do investors: It’s not a coincidence that two of the top 10 industrial stocks this year — Carrier Global Corp. and Trane Technologies Plc — make air conditioners and freezers.