LCD Panel Gas: a super powerful GHG

Most LCDs, cell phones panels, televisions and computer monitors, semi conductors and syntehetic diamonds contain nitrogen trifluoride (NF3) a gas that has 17,000 times greater impact than carbon dioxide. It will stay in the atmosphere for 550 years.

Production of the chemical may double in 2009 and it is not monitored by the Kyoto Protocol.  Production will increase in part because of the switch to digital TV.

For more details see this article.

Professor Michael Prather, Director of the UC Irvine Environment Institute Global; Change, Energy and Sustainable Resources recently made this discovery. Researchers at UC Irvine were also among the first to discover the link between CFCs and ozone depletion.

Date Posted: 7/1/2008