ABC News
Almost half of the televisions sold around the globe so far this year have been plasma or LCD TVs. But this boom could be coming at a huge environmental cost. The gas, widely used in the manufacture of flat screen TVs, is estimated to be 17,000 times as powerful as carbon dioxide. Ironically, NF3 is not covered by the Kyoto protocol as it was only produced in tiny amounts when the treaty was signed in 1997. Levels of this gas in the atmosphere have not been measured, but scientists say it is a concern and are calling for it to be included in any future emissions cutting agreement.
Professor Michael Prather from the University of California has highlighted the issue in an article for the magazine New Scientist. He has told ABC’s The World Today program that output of the gas needs to be measured. “One of my titles for this paper was Going Below Kyoto’s Radar. It’s the kind of gas that’s made in huge amounts,” he said. “Not only is it not in the Kyoto Treaty but you don’t even have to report it. That’s the part that worries me.” He estimates 4,000 tons of NF3 will be produced in 2008 and that number is likely to double next year.
“We don’t know what’s emitted, but what they’re producing every year dwarfs these giant coal-fired power plants that are like the biggest in the world,” he said. “And it dwarfs two of the Kyoto gases. So the real question we don’t know is how much is escaping and getting out.”
I’m still using my Sony Trinitron, so it’s you guys that are the problem….besides, my wife is too cheap to cough up the dough.
I’m still using a 26″ from the 80’s that by itself is using up 10% of this towns power on standby.
and…. if I upgraded to a large flat screen I would have to leave my curtains open so everyone could see it – just like the other Bozos.
Well, we have two older CRTs, a 25″ Sanyo and a 23″ Symphonic, and an ancient 25″ RCA Stereo that still works great in our bedroom.
Maybe in a few years when the price for H-Def is below $500 we might get something. But for now we’re happy.
[Duplicate comment deleted. – ed.]
We don’t own a TV (or TV’s). Take that! HA!
Makes sense to me.
Suppose we invent a gizmo that requires some utterly noxious and poisonous gas during production. Since the gas did not exist before, or was used in minuscule quantities, it was not regulated.
Now this industry, in order to provide us cheap gizmos, needs to put massive amount of this previously unregulated gas into the air. Rather than doing the right thing and finding a way to eliminate the emissions of the poisonous gas, the industry says “There is no law to keep us from doing this, so you can’t make us.”
So we pass a law that protects the people from the rouinous practices of the industry. We have done it with Mercury, DDT, CFC’s… this is just a new gas that needs regulation in order to provide protection to people from it’s harms. It’s bad, it needs regulating, or it will not be treated as bad by those that see $$$ as their primary motivator.
That’s why I use a DLP slim line rear projection.
Seems to be denser than “air”. Not much usable data in the FUD article.
I recently upgraded to Citrucel. The results have been very impressive.
I would like to have a couple of huge flat screen TV’s so I can watch the polar ice caps melt in HDTV!
-some baseless speculation, if i may..
i love all these tonnage estimates with the whole greenhouse thing..
while i have no doubt we (the industrial nations) are screwing up the planet,
i want to see to *exactly* how they calc the scandalous CO2 footprint of just about everything on the f’n planet. is there one standard? personally, i think at least 50% if not 100% of any regulated greenhouse movements are strictly profit based, feel-good scams that dont give a rats ass about saving the planet.
-which leads me to the flat panel story..
since a major media source is pushing the story, that means there is a very good chance they are warming us up for some hairy “footprint” taxes in the near future, -once they fabricate some insane NH3 gas tonnage figures, that is. expect the prices to rise 30% due to a green tax, etc.
i’ll hazard a guess and imagine this factoid was bubbled up to the media by the fatcats backing either the NH3 or OLED industry. i’m sure OLED’s will become the new darling of the green movement as soon as they get the longevity issues
nailed down..
-or maybe the people behind the manufacture of this gas just wanted to raise its usage awareness so as to cause a greater demand for the gas “on the cheap” before its gets taxed into the stratosphere 😮
i mean, if ABC is reporting the news, that means its not news, just an investment story backed, motivated and scripted by big bucks.
call me jaded.
-s
“Levels of this gas in the atmosphere have not been measured, but scientists say it is a concern and are calling for it to be included in any future emissions cutting agreement.”
They’ve not measured it but let’s make a law anyway. What numbnuts.
This potentially dangerous situation (snicker snicker) sounds like a job for CARBON CREDITS MAN! His not-so-secret identity is that of a mild-to-moldy ex-VP dabbling in EnviroWhacko Drivel and AL-chemy.
Happy 4th of July, Everybody!
NH3 is ammonia, right? Don’t we already release a lot of it? Isn’t it used as fertilizer?
[Not NH3, NF3 – Nitrogen Trifluoride – ed.]
17,000 times as powerful as carbon dioxide
If that’s true, then the 4,000 tons of NF3 is contributing 2.5 times that of the world production of CO2.
Here’s the Wiki on NF3.
Thank goodness… 740 years sounded so bad…
[Fixed. – ed.]
BTW, DLP is the best, and it is the only mainstream display technology made in the USA. I own one myself. I am pissed at the set manufacturer, though. The core tech is good, but it needs to be properly deployed. (I’d name the company, but I’m giving them a chance to fix an annoying lamp cooling problem.)
I have to have a large screen at home. I got tired of going to a movie theatre and having to throw rocks at people on cell phones, pouring large cokes on the seats in front of me so 400 lbs. of cellulite wouldn’t be farting in front of me, buying $10 boxes of popcorn and the like.
[fixed. – ed.]
[Fixed. – ed.]
Is it toxic? If we could build a plant to make this stuff on mars the place might be a lot closer to some place I’d like to visit.
#11, Hey Pedro! Sounds like fun!
I bought a big CRT 1080i from Sanyo. It was about a third the price of LCD at the time. Still is pretty cheap! Plus non of the LCD side effects like viewing angle, color wash out, glare, and so on. Plus the lifespan appears to be twice as long. Are we really improving things? or just making things more profitable for companies. I really question many new technologies. Even digital audio come into question these days. Cripes!
LP’s are coming back into the news!
The world production figures for CO2are wrong at Wikipedia. China is now ahead. The U.S. is second.
For some reason I’m not sure I trust the claims in that article.
Forget using this stuff on mars.
It’s toxic.
It is used to make displays; it is also destroyed when so used. Even if they are making a fair amount of it only the leakage is a problem.
Environmentalists are automatically against anything that makes life better.
Eventually they may finally become such a parody of themselves that average Jane Twelvepack will pick up on it.
Personally, I like the idea of firing up a 50″ LCD and watching it through my living room window from my idling SUV while dropping CFL’s on the driveway, trying to kill ants with the mercury vapor. If you also fire up a charcoal grill and put on some big juicy steaks, you’re all set to watch Algore’s movie.
The next generation of LCDs will be driven by LEDs, not CCFLs:
Pictures From the Society for Information Display Conference
Damn, screwed up the link:Next-gen display tech
Lightning just destroyed my Table model 32″ RCA and my table model 36″ FD Trinitron WEGA (250lb’s) and the insurance company just replaced them with two Sony LCD’s.
Anyone want a 36″ FD Trinitron WEGA for parts?
Its amusing to see just how little information is required in order for otherwise intelligent people to form an opinion?
Yep, I’m lookin’ at you.
#26 – The problem is by that time the Movement will find something in LEDs that will Kill Us All (TM) .
#30 – I think life would be nicer if we just recycled all of the “the sky is falling” types into soylent green.