Article taken from New Scientist Magazine - 1st Nov 2008
Our new-found love of flat-screen TV's come come back to haunt us.
Levels of a potent greenhouse gas, nitrogen triflouride (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 "climate friendly" substitute for perfleurocarbon gases (PFCs), which are regulated by Kyoto.
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. An estimate in 2006 put levels of the gas at under 1200 tonnes.
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