Do you own one of those global-warming-causing flat screen TV's? Should I call a HazMat team to dispose of?

Question

TV boom may boost greenhouse effect

02 July 2008

AN INDUSTRIAL chemical being used in ever larger quantities to make flat-screen TVs may be making global warming worse. However, because it's not covered by the Kyoto protocol, nobody knows by how much. The gas was first introduced as a measure to cut greenhouse gas emissions, but a prominent atmospheric chemist this week warned it could now be having the opposite effect.

The gas is nitrogen trifluoride (NF3). As a greenhouse gas it is 17,000 times as potent as carbon dioxide, molecule-for-molecule, yet is not covered by Kyoto because it was made in tiny amounts when the protocol was agreed in 1997.

Even today, no one is measuring how much reaches the atmosphere. The one certainty is that it is accumulating. In a new study, Michael Prather of the University of California, Irvine, calculates that it has a half-life in the atmosphere of 550 years. NF3 production is "exploding"

http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/climate-change/mg19926633.900-tv-boom-may-boost-greenhouse-effect.html

Answer 1

NO, this is complete nonsense.

The set isn't filled with NF3, it's simply a chemical used in their manufacture.  There's essentially none in the final product.  And no study showing any significant release from the manufacturing process, either.

This nonsense is typical of the "facts" from global warming deniers here.  IE, not facts at all, just made up nonsense.

Answer 2

"NF3 is indeed a more powerful greenhouse gas than CO2 (as are methane, CFCs and SF6 etc.), but because it is much less prevalent, the net radiative forcing (as with other Kyoto gases) is much smaller. Unfortunately, no-one has any measures of the concentration of NF3 in the atmosphere. This is likely to be increasing, since production has stepped up rapidly in recent years, but the amount of gas that escapes to the air is unknown. Manufacturers claim that it is only a very small percentage - but historically such claims have not always been very reliable. However, it is almost certain that NF3 has not caused a significant amount of global warming (yet)."

Answer 3

I certainly do... but if you can measure exactly how much damage my tv is doing - and just my tv - then I'll happily give it up.  But seeing as nobody can measure 'exactly' how much damage anything is doing to the world then too bad.