Why flat-screen TVs could be killing our planet

It seems we just can’t get a break when it comes to mixing technology and environmental concerns. Case in point: a new study published in the Geophysical Research Letters journal has found that a gas used in the production of flat-screen TVs called nitrogen trifluoride (NF3) is estimated to be 17,000 times more harmful to our environment than CO2.

The thing is, researchers are still unclear on the details of NF3’s use in the actual production process. A big determining factor in the overall harm to our planet is

whether the gas is captured on sight or broken down before being released into the atmosphere. Since the gas was never produced in such high concentrations before the booming popularity of flat-screen TVs, its harmful effects were never measured accurately. whether it is proven that that gas is released during production, these researchers say that that year’s production alone has “a potential greenhouse impact larger than that of the industrialized nations’ emissions of PFCs or SF6, or even that of the world’s largest coal-fired ability plants.”

[Source] Shawn Schuster

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