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LCD TVs Are 17,000 Times More Harmful to Our Planet Than CO2

reghardware.co.uk — LCD TVs, praised as being greener than old-style tellies because they consume much less power, may actually be speeding climate change, a chemical expert has warned. Researcher Michael Prather believes that exploding demand for HD TVs around the world has created a huge need for Nitrogen Trifluoride, and that's sending emission levels sky high.

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  • SheriffJohn, on 07/03/2008, -16/+90Seriously...can't we do anything right!?
    • TomK88, on 07/04/2008, -10/+28It's funny because based on media reports it would seem our species is at its lowest point ever, when in fact it's the exact opposite.
    • Croecop, on 07/04/2008, -12/+26Your parents certainly didn't
    • proliance, on 07/04/2008, -4/+6The amount of CO2 that is sent into the atmosphere by water evaporating from the oceans is 24,000 more (each day) than what we humans produce all across the planet.

      In other words, keep your hands off my LCD TV.
      • EtherGnat, on 07/04/2008, -1/+5Evaporation puts 24,000 times more *WATER VAPOR* into the air every day (and removes about the same amount) compared to how much CO2 we produce. At least get your propaganda right.

        Seriously, whoever dugg this nonsense up should be ashamed of themselves.
      • PAStheLoD, on 07/04/2008, -0/+1wat? Water .. CO2? At least give some source for this *****.
      • EtherGnat, on 07/05/2008, -0/+1I'm pretty sure this is the information he bastardized:

        "Al Gore likes to say that mankind puts 70 million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every day. What he probably doesn't know is that mother nature puts 24,000 times that amount of our main greenhouse gas -- water vapor -- into the atmosphere every day, and removes about the same amount every day. While this does not 'prove' that global warming is not manmade, it shows that weather systems have by far the greatest control over the Earth's greenhouse effect, which is dominated by water vapor and clouds." http://www.weatherquestions.com/Roy-Spencer-on-glo ...

        I have no idea if that's scientifically accurate, but even if it is it's pretty meaningless. The water vapor operates in a daily cycle (as the quote admits) while CO2 stays in the atmosphere for about 100 years. Multiply your CO2 levels by 36,525 and suddenly the picture looks much different.
    • petaganayr, on 07/04/2008, -1/+3I actually don't believe this kind of article anymore. One day I was browsing through the Internet and found an article about how we are doomed because of global warming...then on the same Science website it was describing that another ice age is possible because the Sun hasn't produced sun spots in a very long while. What is it really?? So, I just said screw everything and I am just going to live my life:-) Now a days, everything seems to cause cancer, even a trip to your mother-in-law's house. Almost everyday we get bombarded by environmental issues, eventually leading to our impending doom. Has anybody actually stepped back and analyzed all of these information if they are actually correct? I am just saying... Digg me down:-)
  • salamnder, on 07/03/2008, -6/+58LCD tvs take up SO Much less energy to run and so much less waste when broken then those old CRTs from yesteryear. And best part, a 50" LCD weighs what 75lbs where a 50" CRT would be what, 500 lbs! Not to mention the phosphorous and mercury and bla bla bla bla
    • t0x2c, on 07/04/2008, -0/+28Despite his terrible construction this man makes valid points that most may not have realized. Lighter weights mean easier travel, less wasted transportation fuels. The chemicals are also much worse for the environment in old style CRTs than LCDs, despite the production waste of LCDs.
    • Rikkochet, on 07/04/2008, -0/+11That's not the point of the article, though. NF3 is a hugely efficient greenhouse gas compared to conventional pollution. The solution would seem to be finding a method of producing LCD panels without NF3 rather than shrugging and saying we're saving on energy consumption.
    • scamper22, on 07/04/2008, -0/+1All wonderful... yet "NF3 is 17,200 times better at trapping heat in the atmosphere over a hundred-year period than is carbon dioxide"

      thats 17000 times. Is the savings in energy use / transportation... equal to 17 000 tiimes that of old school CRT? I leave that up to the professor
  • twoheadedboy00, on 07/03/2008, -24/+8buried for using the word tellies.
    • justinviger, on 07/04/2008, -3/+9Dugg for using the word tellies.
      • dkapuchino, on 07/04/2008, -6/+1burried for digging the use of the word tellies
    • dxgg, on 07/04/2008, -2/+5Blocked for complaining about an article from the UK using their own local vernacular.
  • LilFotherMucker, on 07/03/2008, -17/+32I am sure they mean those 50" planet-killers that my rich neighbor just got for every room, not the simple and humble 42" I have.
  • wille1623, on 07/04/2008, -12/+6No matter what you say, im not getting rid of any of my LCD tv's. There just wayyy too awsome. I dont want to watch pokemon on a 15 in old tv, i want 50 full inches of Picakhu.
    • Marumekomu, on 07/04/2008, -0/+27"I want 50 full inches of Pikachu."

      There's not enough lube in the world.
    • BoonTobias, on 07/04/2008, -0/+4would you rather take my pikachu 10 times?
    • netneutrality, on 07/04/2008, -2/+1Rich snob.
    • djepik, on 07/04/2008, -0/+2Here here
      • itspuddingtime, on 07/04/2008, -0/+1it's "hear." Think about what the phrase means.
      • djepik, on 07/04/2008, -0/+1Ooooh that's embarassing... I feel like I may have known that at one point... thanks though

        I guess my love of pokemon surpassed by attention to spelling.
    • senatorpjt, on 07/04/2008, -0/+1There's no reason to get rid of it. The problem is during manufacture, not operation.
  • chaddles, on 07/04/2008, -8/+3Anyone know if this applies to LCD monitors as well?
    • Rudegar, on 07/04/2008, -0/+5an lcd monitor is just a most of the times smaller lcd tv without a tvtuner which recieve signals analog or digtal and display them
      so unless we are to believe that it's the tuners that use Nitrogen Trifluoride yes!

      the picture of the thread even show a cellphone not a tv so rest asure that it's the panels
  • tehbored, on 07/04/2008, -3/+84It sounds like the LCD's aren't the problem, the factories making them are.
    • KMartSheriff, on 07/04/2008, -3/+9That's what I was thinking too. How could the LCD's be at fault, instead of the factories that manufacture them?

      Blame China?
    • cheezintern, on 07/04/2008, -0/+3It didn't say how the chemical is released either. If it's used in production, the factory has an economic reason not to throw it away. If it's a byproduct, all they have to do is capture it.
    • dstz, on 07/04/2008, -0/+1Offer and demand. You just can't isolate a real-life problematic in such a small box.

      .. and, about the demand.. I wonder how many off those Digg kids are running anything less than a 22 inches wide (about 19" 4/3 if I'm not mistaken on pixel count) in 2008.
    • Y0tsuya, on 07/04/2008, -0/+2We should shut down the LCD factories. That'll solve the problem.
    • jtanunleashed, on 07/04/2008, -0/+1Yeah, if there was a risk of LCDs exploding in people's homes it would be a bigger deal than this.
      Surely there's an alternative we can develop that is pro-ozone. Then we can get right on not using it, like green electricity.
  • pinchies, on 07/04/2008, -1/+23Well, my old sony CRT TV has none of that nasty gas...
    ...only lead, arsenic, barium, dangerous vacuums...

    OLED displays would be a better option, but they suffer screen burn really easily. I left an mp3 player on overnight with an OLED display, and it 'burnt' the standby logo into it. Hopefully they will improve the tech for full tv's.

    Does this apply to plasma's as well? What stage of the manufacturing process?
  • a1cd, on 07/04/2008, -6/+22Man... were screwed whatever we do.
    • santaliqueur, on 07/04/2008, -4/+5That's the idea of all these silly studies, to make us think we're all screwed all of the time. It's best to ignore them all.
      • Rikkochet, on 07/04/2008, -3/+3That's a great attitude and one that has served us well up until the scientific revolution.
      • santaliqueur, on 07/04/2008, -1/+3Got another explanation for all these studies that exaggerate all over the place? If they all were true, the world would have collapsed a thousand times over, by now.
      • dcrad, on 07/05/2008, -0/+1Yeah there's loads that are exaggerated, just because your told it in the media, doesnt make it true. Infact the New World Order springs to mind!
    • tomis, on 07/05/2008, -0/+1Please clarify.

      "Man were screwed whatever we do"
      or
      "Man we are screwed whatever we do"
  • banido, on 07/04/2008, -2/+30Is there anything left to blame?
  • TheOle, on 07/04/2008, -2/+16Am I the only one having a problem with the headline? Last time I checked, CO2 wasn't a fixed amount of gas.
    • Acglaphotis, on 07/04/2008, -1/+2Well, now you know.
    • incongruity, on 07/04/2008, -2/+7Never let reason get in the way of irrational panic when it's founded on less than complete details....
    • Rikkochet, on 07/04/2008, -0/+6I thought it was implied that NF3 was 17k time more efficient than an equivalent amount of CO2.
      Naturally the amount of NF3 given off during the production of one TV may be absolutely miniscule that driving a car down the block puts out 17k times the CO2, but it's something to be aware of.
  • PDF84, on 07/04/2008, -15/+6HAHAHAHAHAHA!! Take that Liberal command centers with all of your flat panel display walls!!
  • mike17032, on 07/04/2008, -18/+13Who cares?
  • mike7899, on 07/04/2008, -9/+3Now all the smug hippies can buy CRT's and think they are so much better than ***** conservatives who buy planet killing LCD's.
    • EntropyNine, on 07/04/2008, -1/+4no no no, I'm a smug hippie because I don't even own a TV.
      • mike7899, on 07/04/2008, -0/+2but, do you drive a hybrid? any self respecting hippie owns a hybrid
      • tehcommodore, on 07/04/2008, -0/+2smug hippies dont own computers
      • shanealeslie, on 07/04/2008, -0/+5WRONG! Self respecting hippies ride a bike.
        Poseur Hippies drive hybrids.
      • mike7899, on 07/04/2008, -0/+3LMAO at "Poseur Hippies"
      • pookkake, on 07/04/2008, -0/+2poseur hippies? they are all posers.
        All the real hippies are old. not young hemp necklace wearing bro's
      • EntropyNine, on 07/04/2008, -0/+4I rigged my computer to run off of good vibes.
  • AVigorVermin, on 07/04/2008, -7/+3nah we'll find a solution. Where there is consumer demand there are hungry profit whoring companies ready to fill that demand.
  • Tyrghast, on 07/04/2008, -8/+3And there are fewer pirates today than there have been in the past. Thus fewer Pirates are the direct cause of Global Warming.

    Hooray pseudo-science.
    • kingmanic, on 07/04/2008, -0/+4The correlation was broken recently. With the collapse of the soviet union as a plausible threat to the US, US and Russian patrols of shipping lanes have decreased and we now have a dramatic increase int he number of pirates. As well if we include "software" pirates then the number of pirates is at a all time high!!!!
  • SpykerSpeed, on 07/04/2008, -3/+6Oh yeah, Nitrogen Trifluoride. That's the um thing with the... thing. I remember that.
  • norman619, on 07/04/2008, -1/+37These silly stories designed to scare the ignorant are 1,000,000 times more harmful to our planet than CO2. Mainly because it motivates the masses of ignorant people who tend to react instead of thinking critically to go out and do stupid things.
    • arunforce, on 07/04/2008, -4/+1I don't think it includes us Americans. :/
    • dsmx, on 07/04/2008, -0/+9Dihydrogen Monoxide is far more potent at global warming than Carbon Dioxide.
      • norman619, on 07/05/2008, -0/+2Exactly. Water vapor is what keeps our beautiful planet warm and habitable. To see how powerful it is just visit the desert. Plus all the data shows that changes in CO2 levels follow temperature changes they don't preceded them.
      • digid, on 07/05/2008, -0/+2your epidermis is showing
    • WakeRider, on 07/04/2008, -0/+1@dsmx

      I see what you did there!
  • JasonCox, on 07/04/2008, -1/+11I call *****; and anyone who dares counter my call can give me an even bigger LCD TV so I can prove I'm right.
  • BonersMilloy, on 07/04/2008, -10/+3What that in the sky?
    http://img45.imageshack.us/img45/7919/roflcopter9g ...
  • shadowmoose, on 07/04/2008, -9/+7So?
  • andergriff, on 07/04/2008, -7/+11Enviro-Puritans: throw yourselves over a cliff!!!!!!
  • davidlitts, on 07/04/2008, -10/+6*****.
  • elucubra, on 07/04/2008, -1/+14Ahhh... The old cycle again! Vegetable oil is better than animal fat, no! wait! it isn't! Oh! baby formula is more complete than breast feeding. Oh no It is not! Etc... Etc...

    We seem to always fall for the same traps. I guess we are pathologically optimistic. ( I am at least).
    • djepik, on 07/04/2008, -1/+2Or, is that pessimistic?

      (The stuff we have now is crap, we need this new stuff to be better)
  • jaderok, on 07/04/2008, -5/+8Kiss the environment goodbye cause I'm not giving up my tv!
  • Punchcardz, on 07/04/2008, -0/+39Terrible, terrible, headline

    Non-retarded summary:
    Making LCDs releases NF3, which is really, really good at behaving like a greenhouse gas. It traps heat 17,000 times more effectively than CO2. LCD's are often thought to be more environmentally friendly because they use less energy and therefore produce less CO2, but their impact on global warming has not considered NF3 released in their manufacture.

    Of course, without any actual numbers, it is impossible to infer ANYTHING. For example if 17,000 times less NF3 is relased in the manufacture than CO2 is saved over the lifespan of the TV, it comes out as a wash.

    The lesson: Maybe we should monitor NF3 emissions and then make a decision about how good and LCD is relative to greenhouse gas emissions.
    • AmericansRevolt, on 07/04/2008, -3/+2why the ***** can't they just trap the goddamn gasses before they let them go into the air?
    • arunforce, on 07/04/2008, -1/+3Wikipedia says 4000 tons of it was put out in 2007, and that isn't really that much when compared to CO2.
      • senatorpjt, on 07/04/2008, -0/+3Might as well have gone all the way and looked up that CO2 emissions for electricity production alone in 1999 were 2.2 billion tons. 4000 tons of something 17,000 times as bad is like 68 million - 3% of it. Also, that 2.2 billion is metric tons, i don't know if the 4000 is metric tons or not. Another one is the atmosphere currently has about 3 trillion tons of CO2 in it.
    • lolwhatno, on 07/04/2008, -1/+0You, sir, are my hero.
  • Khast, on 07/04/2008, -1/+14I have a quick question.... WHAT DOESN'T CAUSE GLOBAL WARMING? You frequently see (New Technology) creates more (Chemical) which will cause global warming at ( N=rnd(1)*10) ) times as fast as (Old Related Technology) [think madlibs]

    Seriously, does anyone have an answer? It seems literally every time something comes out, we have reports on how much worse it is for the environment.
    • warlax27, on 07/04/2008, -0/+11I bet Global COOLING somehow is linked to cause Global warming...
    • CyphreDias, on 07/04/2008, -5/+8Man-made CO2 based global warming is a fraud. The fraud stems the desire of international elites to inject information that supports a belief system shared by the general public that will help drive the political agenda towards one world socialist government ruled by the same people who are planting the seeds of the propaganda factorys. I have spent a lot of time studying all the material. If you do the same, you will see that Man-made CO2 based global warming is a politically driven elitist fraud. I don't mean to imply that the environment is not important. We do have real environmental problems. It is a shame that so much of our energy has been dedicated to CO2 based lies.
    • Wuzizname, on 07/04/2008, -0/+7Butter churns. Butter churns produce very little global warming gases.
      • MechaFalcon, on 07/04/2008, -0/+1You just wait for some sort of study on that. We'll find out they're the leading cause.
      • djepik, on 07/04/2008, -0/+1You better back that up with some peer reviewed articles.

        I'm not taking any chances, no homemade butter for this enviro-man.
      • senatorpjt, on 07/04/2008, -0/+1Cows produce a lot of global warming gas, which make the milk where the butter comes from.
      • CyphreDias, on 07/05/2008, -0/+1Laughing my ass off. I love your comments.

        That's right the milk comes from cows and cows fart methane which is a (so called) trace greenhouse gas along with CO2.

        The more I read blogs by everyday people, the more I understand how lame and hamstrung the mainstream media really is....
    • badenglishihave, on 07/04/2008, -1/+2Amen to that.

      http://www.climatecrisis.net/ (Al Gore)
      http://www.greatglobalwarmingswindle.com/ (Scientists)

      Who are you going to believe?
      • EtherGnat, on 07/04/2008, -2/+1Considering the producer of the Great Global Warming Swindle has been known for promoting bunk science and the film is only supported by a few scientists--and in fact some of the scientists who are featured in the film disagree with its conclusions--it's not going to be my first source of information.
    • scamper22, on 07/04/2008, -0/+3Things to teach your kids:

      Everything causes global warming.
      Everything is the cure to global warming.
      Everything causes cancer.
      Everything prevents cancer.

    • h0ly, on 07/04/2008, -0/+1Dugg for rnd(1)
  • kolop1, on 07/04/2008, -13/+8When will people stop believing this crap. If all of this were true we would all be dead by now. The Go green movement is a fraud. WAKE UP PEOPLE!!!
  • sedawk, on 07/04/2008, -0/+14"LCD TVs Are 17,000 Times More Harmful to Our Planet Than CO2" -- This title make no sense. Why are people digging articles with improperly phrased titles?

    "Baseball bats are 27,000 time more harmful to humans than hand guns"

    "Dirt is 10,000 times less likely to get you wet than water"
  • godd4242, on 07/04/2008, -0/+20SENSATIONALIST HEADLINES BASED ON THE UNVERIFIED RESEARCH OF ONE INDIVIDUAL ARE FUN

  • usafdave, on 07/04/2008, -3/+7I'm at a ***** loss for words. These people need a hobby.
  • BoonTobias, on 07/04/2008, -5/+2gaming on a SDTV without any surround sound ftw!!
  • tehcommodore, on 07/04/2008, -8/+4Digg this ***** down
  • burnedtubes, on 07/04/2008, -8/+2God damn it... who gives a ***** at this point. Look news flash to everyone The Earth and humans will not last forever. Don't get me wrong we should be responsible, but come on this wish for immortality wrapped in "Green" is getting a bit overblown.
  • spatty, on 07/04/2008, -3/+3QQ more environmentalists
  • aserer511, on 07/04/2008, -0/+4Solution-buy the best LCD TV at any given point in time so you don't have to buy more and cause more waste :P
  • AmericansRevolt, on 07/04/2008, -1/+2it's called 'getting the ***** off this planet'.
  • jbmcb, on 07/04/2008, -1/+5Ah yes, another article from the "75% of all statistics mean nothing" department.
  • shaherazad, on 07/04/2008, -6/+5Boo ***** hoo.
  • hcl40u, on 07/04/2008, -0/+1Source this article appears to be based on:
    http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2008/2008GL034542 ...
  • evil-doer, on 07/04/2008, -0/+1what ever happened to SED tvs/monitors? they seem better in every way but never seem to come out?
  • Taiyoryu, on 07/04/2008, -0/+3"Michael Prather... claims that atmospheric quantities of the gas Nitrogen Trifluoride (NF3) are booming."

    "The problem is, NF3 emission levels aren't being measured by the worldwide greenhouse-gas monitoring programme put in place by the Kyoto Protocol on climate change."

    So where does his data come from?
    • EtherGnat, on 07/04/2008, -0/+1Just because it's not part of the formal Kyoto Protocol monitoring doesn't mean nobody is testing for it.
      • Taiyoryu, on 07/07/2008, -0/+1Right... but putting enough atmospheric monitors around the world to get a reasonable amount of data is probably beyond the budget of a single professor. I'm not refuting the guy's claim, but the article doesn't list any evidence or even how the evidence was collected.
  • lolmacs, on 07/04/2008, -0/+3"Nitrogen trifluoride is used in the plasma etching of silicon wafers"
    Guess we better get rid of computers now too...
  • BluKnight, on 07/04/2008, -2/+8You'll have to pry my LCD TV from my dead, cold fingers.
  • amightywind, on 07/04/2008, -10/+5I knew there was a reason I liked LCD's over plasma. Screw the planet.
    • banderwocky, on 07/04/2008, -2/+4Just the American part. God hates that part the most.
      • amightywind, on 07/04/2008, -2/+1God loves America and smiles apon the armies of George W. Bush.
      • xEn1gma, on 07/08/2008, -0/+1There is no way this guy can be serious.
  • 20trys, on 07/04/2008, -0/+1I am wondering what Michael Plather, the source for the story and scientist investigating the gasses in the environment, says about compact fluorescent light bulbs? They are being pushed right now as a way to be more green. If not recycled the argon gass and mercury that could leak into drinking water. How green is that. But both, CFL's and LCD's, are improved energy savers. So which is for the greater good? So that leads to questions and what I didn't catch skimming the article. Are the gasses released producing the TV's? Can we reduce the amount by also recycling the TV, so it will be a bigger issue in 5-10 years when people get rid of their old ones.
    • KelticKal, on 07/04/2008, -0/+0Mercury certainly has the potential to cause a problem but the environmental dangers from argon are virtually nil. Check the periodic table for properties of elements in column 8. Hint: Helium is commonly used as part of the gas mixture for deep sea divers and makes them sound like Donald Duck. The good news here is that argon won;t even do this.
  • nastronomical, on 07/04/2008, -1/+3LOL here we go again.
  • CyphreDias, on 07/04/2008, -7/+6Man-made CO2 based global warming is a fraud. The fraud stems the desire of international elites to inject information that supports a belief system shared by the general public that will help drive the political agenda towards one world socialist government ruled by the same people who are planting the seeds of the propaganda factorys. I have spent a lot of time studying all the material. If you do the same, you will see that Man-made CO2 based global warming is a politically driven elitist fraud. I don't mean to imply that the environment is not important. We do have real environmental problems. It is a shame that so much of our energy has been dedicated to CO2 based lies.
    • Rudegar, on 07/04/2008, -0/+1not just that everybody are in on it

      even the collision of secret commies and nazi's working together from the secret lair on the southpole where they make money selling our tech to aliens :O

      kinda wild too 99% of scientiests around the world are 1 fooled 2 not wearing tin foilhats and as such mindcontrolled
      good thing for those 1% currently employed by the oil companys
      also known as the ones that got away
      • pentalive, on 07/05/2008, -0/+1"Oil Man" hard hats are made of steel, almost as good as a tinfoil hat.
    • beevbo, on 07/04/2008, -0/+1Nothing muddies a good debate like a conspiracy theory. If you've studied "all the material" I commend you for your determination, cause slogging through the IPCC reports would be a heavy, boring read. Of course you haven't done that. We all know that.

      If you're are 100% for absolute certain that man-made CO2 is completely not a factor, then you are either reading right wing propaganda, or interpreting the facts wrong.
  • Makinart, on 07/04/2008, -2/+0So? Like with the olden day TV's we were told to stay so many feet away from the screen. SO? Kidney disease is really a rotten way to live. SOOO?
    Some of us are working toward Reducing Green House gases. Some even have a seven generation plan...ideas for safety and strategy?
    • djepik, on 07/04/2008, -0/+1Seven - mother effing - generation plan. That's almost 200 years from now. Please tell me you do not have the audacity to think you can see into the future 200 years from now. OR please tell me that you have planned for your great great great great grandchildren to use low-energy plasma toasters by the year 2135.
  • thebza451, on 07/04/2008, -6/+6OH WELL!!! ***** global warming nutsos...
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