LCD making worse for environment than coal?

A chemical used to make LCD televisions and semiconductors could cause more global warming than coal-fired power plants, a report warns.

Nitrogen trifluoride is a "missing greenhouse gas," according to a study published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters on June 26. It's used in chemical vapor deposition, which makes liquid crystal displays, semiconductors, and synthetic diamond.

Production of the chemical could double to 8,000 metric tons in 2009, atmospheric chemist Michael Prather, who co-wrote the report, told New Scientist.

Nitrogen trifluoride's globe-warming effect reportedly could be 17,000 times stronger than that of carbon dioxide.

However, the picture is incomplete because nitrogen trifluoride isn't among the six gases covered by the Kyoto Protocol international climate change agreement.

This year alone, its production would release the equivalent of the global-warming emissions from Austria, totaling some 67 million metric tons, New Scientist noted.

And that would amount to more global-warming pollution than all the industrialized world's emissions of perfluorocarbons (PFCs) and of sulfur hexafluoride, which is considered more potent.

Kyoto's terms left out nitrogen trifluoride and some dozen other gases, in part because they weren't produced at a scale large enough to cause significant harm.

Some companies had turned to the man-made chemical initially to reduce pollution.

The market for flat-screen televisions, including LCDs, is expected to boom with the United States' full transition to digital television next February.

Along with it, watchdog groups warn that additional ecological harm could come, if toxic electronics waste isn't disposed of properly. Americans are expected to discard 80 million analog TVs by the end of 2009.

However, LCD televisions are often painted as eco-friendly because they consume less power than plasma and older rear-projection sets.

[rucknrun]

Interesting in the article you reference it shows rear projection uses less power then LCD.

[M C]

Journalism 101: Adding a "?" after a controversial statement makes it stand out in people's minds as a "fact."

Just saying...

[stepyourgameup]

Another reason to get a plasma.

[rucknrun]

I am only talking about the last line of the article.

[mmichaels]

"Nitrogen trifluoride's globe-warming effect reportedly could be 17,000 times stronger than that of carbon dioxide."

See...I KNEW CO2 wasn't really a problem! Maybe we can focus on selling Nitrogen triflouride credits to those who want a flat-screen tv? Maybe measure a Nitrogen triflouride footprint...Probably not. It's not as marketable and doesn't sound as good as "carbon credits".

[Spartan_458]

Ooooh, I'm supposed to feel bad and be alarmed by the article on "global warming." Not.

[rucknrun]

Don't forget they call it climate change now since things have been cooling off for the last 4 years.

[William Crow]

Any good conservationist doesn't have a computer, automobile, or flat screen TV. The list could be longer. Those that call themselves conservationists and do are fakes and posers. But then...nothing new about that.

[rucknrun]

Good point!!

[Hernys]

> Those that call themselves conservationists and do are fakes and posers
Really? So if I planted a thousand hectares with trees but use a computer and a car to manage the operation then I'm not a conservationist, but someone that does nothing but buying magazines about wildlife is?
Your logic is so lame that it makes me sad.

[MaLvaDo39]

Humans contribute 3% of greenhouse gases into the environment. Mother nature contributes 97%.

Do not believe these shock talking "scientists"...or at least get some proof on why temperatures are rising. Exactly why? ... and they won't be able to tell you.

[WJeansonne]

Oh, great. Something else to give the tree-hugging looney leftists to cry about.

[bobcalder]

Read this:
http://enochthered.wordpress.com/2008/07/03/nitrogen-trifluoride-as-an-anthropogenic-greenhouse-forcing-gas/

No NF3 in Plasma manufacturing. No fact checking. rofls

[bobcalder]

MaLvaDo39, it is no longer under discussion. You evidently missed the research community explaining it for the last three years. It would be a good idea to listen to researchers and not reporters or think tank cretins who were paid to sow doubt. Your argument is cut and paste kiddo.

The NF3 article may very well be silly. It doesn't negate solid science done by over fifteen hundred climate scientists from nearly every country on the planet.

[guytaur1]

In Australia our reports have been about Plasma not Lcd on this topic. So is it both just Plasma or just Lcd?

[UrbanBard]

This is stupid stuff. The most powerful Global warming gas on the planet is water vapor. We would be freezing to death, right now, without it. The only place where CO2 has a noticeable effect is in dry areas--deserts and the upper latitudes of Asia and Alaska.

Now, the Environmentalists want to decry a chemical which will never have the volume released to have a noticeable effect.

Then, you add in that Global Warming is passe'. This year was the coldest on record in many places for the last 60 to a hundred years. It snowed in Baghdad this winter, for Christ's sake.

The Weather Satellites say that the Earth lost 0.6 decrees Centigrade this winter. That wipes out the 0.7 decree Centigrade rise in Earth's temperature that got the Environmentalists so excited.

We are in for colder weather. The Pacific Decadal Oscillation will be in its cold phase for the next thirty years.

Worse, Sun Spot Cycle 24 should have started a year and a half ago and did not. A low number of sun spots means cold weather because the Sun is not putting out as much heat.

All this is questionable, because we don't know if the trends will continue. Getting excited about some minor chemical shows how off base the Environmentalists are. They are propagandists, pure and simple. Nothing they say makes sense.

Anyone who tells you anything like 'the science is done' or 'you can't talk about that because it's already decided' is NOT a scientist. He is a religionist with a belief system. The 'science' of anything is never done. The 'science' of something as simple as water is not done. If you choose to believe something with as many variables as global climate is 'done', you, sir, are one of the enraptured. The most overwhelming influence on our climate is the sun with tectonics next. 'Man' is way down the list. Believe what you want, but do not insist upon anyone else believing with you. There's an old saying about urinating on my back and telling me it's raining. It isn't; and telling me so doesn't prove anything...except your gullibility.

[zoo22ooz]

NF3 is also used to make solar photovoltaic panels.

What is the environmentalist position regarding this?

Cant drill, cant build nukes, now - cant manufacture solar panels.

[spothannah]

As I understand it the CO2 problem not only comes from its production but also the fact that it is produced everywhere. I'm guessing that this "everywhere" production is not a problem in the production/use of NitrogenTrifluoride. If this is true, it would probably be easier to recapture at the sites where it is produced/utilized. Or, is it that it is somehow stored in the panels and then when they are discarded the gas is released into the environment? Just wondering.

[BenFlavoredCandy]

spothannah, thank you for saying something relevant to this article. NF3 is emitted in a few manufacturing processes, but only in manufacturing processes. I don't know of specific capture technologies, but any point-source emissions are much more easily combated than mobile sources.

For the record, H2O is considered an air pollutant while CO2 is not UNDER THE CLEAN AIR ACT. That does not mean CO2 does not, has not, and will not have adverse ecological effects.