HDTV 17,000X Worse than CO2
July 29, 2008 at 7:34 am | Filed under: Recycling News, TechnoBlog
NF3 compressor awaiting installation
A recent study shows that Nitrogen Triflouride (or NF3), a chemical compound used to manufacture computer chips and LCD displays, may be far worse for the eniromment, ounce for ounce, than the common killer CO2. With the rise of the HD television, the increase demand for large LCD panels is increasing the demand for NF3 almost exponentially.
The chemical is still a relative new-comer and currently unregulated but in the coming years as our current crop LCDs begins to break and die and get disposed this innocuous anacrynm could take on potent significance. Unlike the toxic lead in the glass of CRT monitors and television, NF3 is a gas at normal temperatures making it even easier to release into the environment. Once released it will take an estimated 550 years for the gas to dissapate.
Because NF3 is unregulated, it is nearly impossible to say how much of the gas has been produced. Estimates are around 4,000 tons for 2008. The environmental impact of that much gas–were it to be released–is the equivalent of 67 million tons of CO2. That is more damaging than the world’s worst coal burning power plants.
