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Earth

Greenhouse gas from flat-screen TV makers soars

29 October 2008

OUR new-found love of flat-screen TVs could come back to haunt us. Levels of a potent greenhouse gas, nitrogen trifluoride (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…

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