This is the perfect example of thinking through the impact of technological “advances”. One step forward and two steps back? It makes you wonder if the FCC even gave it a thought when they mandated the move to HDTV. I doubt it.
Chemical in flat-screen TVs is worsening climate change
If you didn’t feel guilty about your TV habits already, here’s a new reason: a chemical used in making flat-screen televisions has been found to be a potent greenhouse gas, 17,000 times stronger than carbon dioxide. In a study published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, atmospheric chemist Michael Prather called nitrogen trifluoride, or NF3, “the missing greenhouse gas,” and warned that the climate could suffer as the chemical is produced in ever greater amounts to meet soaring demand for LCD displays. If all of the NF3 produced in 2008 were released into the atmosphere, it would have as much warming effect as 67 million metric tons of carbon dioxide, the study found – about the same as the annual CO2 emissions of Austria. NF3 isn’t covered by the Kyoto Protocol because it was only being produced in tiny amounts in 1997 when the treaty was negotiated. Ironically, NF3 was developed as an alternative to perfluorocarbons, greenhouse gases that are governed by Kyoto.
Sources: The Guardian, CNet News, The Press Association
Mastriani
July 10, 2008, 1:43am
2
Too many human bodies … and cattle. That’s the two biggest threats to climate change.
Eat steak and shoot your neighbor, and everything else will be alright.
Any fluoride material is a straight away detriment to the atmosphere …
A problem with the above article and its assessment that it is an alternative to perfluorocarbons … it’s a direct extraction from them.
Abstract
NF3 is a rare example of a binary fluoride that cannot be prepared directly from the elements (i.e., N2 does not react with F2). Almost all other elements in the periodic table react directly, often violently, with fluorine.
After first attempting the synthesis in 1903, Otto Ruff prepared nitrogen trifluoride 25 years later by the electrolysis of a molten mixture of ammonium fluoride and hydrogen fluoride.[2] It proved to be far less reactive than nitrogen trichloride. Today, it is prepared both by direct reaction of ammonia and fluorine and by a variation of Ruff’s method.[3]
What a bunch of fucking geniuses we have on this planet.
“I need a TV to watch Jerry Springer in high definition. I don’t care if it 17,200 times more toxic than CO2 … I needs ma Springer”.
Bullets cure humanity … permanently.