As the manufacture of flat-screen televisions to meet consumer demand continues to rise, so too does the threat to our environment, according to a new study.

Nitrogen trifluoride (NF₃), which is used to make flat-screen, LCD and plasma screens for televisions and computers, is being cited by environmental scientists for inflicting serious damage to the atmosphere.

In fact, NF₃ could be considered the “missing greenhouse gas,” atmospheric chemists Michael J. Prather and Juno Hsu of UC Irvine wrote in a paper published June 26 in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. NF₃ is not covered by the Kyoto Protocol, as it was only produced in tiny amounts when the treaty was signed in 1997.

“Levels of this gas in the atmosphere have not been measured, but scientists say it is a concern and are calling for it to be included in any future emissions-cutting agreement,” according to Broadcast Engineering this week.

If NF₃ is 17,000 times stronger than carbon dioxide, as Prather and Hsu’s study says, it’s easy to see why there is cause for concern.

“With the surge in flat-panel displays, the market for NF₃ has exploded,” the researchers propose.

A recent DisplaySearch study says shipments of LCDs increased 69 percent year-to-year and show no signs of slowing down. Already, according to Broadcast Engineering, nearly half of the TVs made across the globe are LCDs and plasmas.

The possible irony of NF₃ is that it was actually created to cut down on harmful emissions, according to a recent The Los Angeles Timesarticle.

Here’s more, from the L.A. Times:

Computer chip manufacturers used perfluorocarbons [link by IMT] to clean the vacuum chambers where integrated circuits were made. But about two-thirds of the PFCs escaped into the atmosphere, contributing to the greenhouse effect, a warming of the Earth’s surface. Reacting to environmental concerns, the industry sought a substitute — and estimated that NF3, though it had greater potential for global warming, was less likely to escape into the air.

“We moved into manufacturing NF3 for environmental reasons,” Corning F. Painter, vice president of global electronics for Air Products, told the L.A. Times.

The Pennsylvania-based company, which received a 2002 Climate Protection Award from the Environmental Protection Agency for its transition, rejects the statistics and scenario proposed in Prather and Hsu’s recent paper, saying that about 2 percent of NF₃ is emitted during the manufacturing process and that much of the chemical is burned off before reaching the atmosphere.

So how much NF₃ is really being released into the atmosphere? Again, the facts are murky, but here are a few points to consider, as noted in the L.A. Times report:

• Charles E. Kolb Jr., an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change scientist, said, “We are having a hard enough time controlling carbon dioxide and methane — we shouldn’t be creating a new problem.”

• Another climate scientist, V. (Ram) Ramanathan of UC San Diego, noted the potency and long life of NF₃, adding, “We need to know how much of these super-greenhouse gases are up there.”

• California state air resources board spokesman Stanley Young said NFS isn’t the issue but other synthetic greenhouse gasses are. “The larger issue is the chlorofluorocarbons and hydrochlorofluorocarbons. Enough material [is] stored in old refrigerators, air conditioners and insulating foams to equal over 600 million metric tons of carbon dioxide in California alone.” (links by IMT)

This isn’t the first time the energy usage of LCDs has sparked controversy. Last year, government officials in Australia and England considered banning LCDs altogether.

Do we need strict(er) regulations for the manufacture of NF₃? Or should regulators be focusing efforts elsewhere?