OUR new-found love of flat-screen TVs could come back to haunt us. Levels of a potent greenhouse gas, nitrogen trifluoride (NF3), released in their manufacture are four times as high as estimates in 2006, and rising, reveals the first study measuring atmospheric levels of the gas.
Researchers warned earlier this year that the growing popularity of LCD technology was releasing increasing amounts of NF3 into the atmosphere. Though it is 17,000 times as potent a greenhouse gas as carbon dioxide, it is not regulated by the Kyoto protocol because NF3 emissions were tiny when it was agreed in 1997. Ironically, NF3 was brought in as a 鈥渃limate friendly鈥� substitue for perfluorocarbon gases (PFCs), which are regulated by Kyoto.
鈥淭he gas was brought in as a 鈥榗limate friendly鈥� substitute for perfluorocarbons鈥�
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Ray Weiss of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California, and colleagues have shown that some 5400 tonnes of it are in the atmosphere (Geophysical Research Letters, ). An estimate in 2006 put levels of the gas at under 1200 tonnes.
