Greenhouse Gas From Microchip Industry Increasing in Atmosphere
To be fair, nitrogen trifluoride (NF3) is also used to manufacture solar panel photovoltaic cells. That’s irony for you.
New research coming out from Scripps Institute of Oceanography at the University of California at San Diego is showing an alarming rise in nitrogen trifluoride, a gas that is “thousands of times more effective at warming the atmosphere.”
Here’s some more irony for you. NF3 became the microelectronics industry’s gas of choice because back then it was thought of as the environmentally-friendly choice over perfluorocarbons, which are more stable compounds that remain in the atmosphere for thousands of years and also more likely to escape during the manufacturing process.
So, with NF3, less of it escapes. But the troubling news is that much more has escaped that previously thought.
The amount of the gas in the atmosphere, which could not be detected using previous techniques, had been estimated at less than 1,200 metric tons in 2006. The new research shows the actual amount was 4,200 metric tons. In 2008, about 5,400 metric tons of the gas was in the atmosphere, a quantity that is increasing at about 11 percent per year. — Science Daily
According to the scientists behind the research, recent innovations in measuring NF3 has made monitoring the gas more accurate. The levels of NF3 are all the more troubling, but still less than one-half percent of the total greenhouse gases pumped into the atmosphere by humans and their insatiable needs for computers with flat screen monitors and LCD tvs. And yes, I am writing this on such a device, so my hypocrisy is not lost on me.
The research is part of a NASA-funded network of scientists in different parts of the world contributing data. This is from the NASA press release:
The Scripps team analyzed air samples gathered during the past 30 years, including samples from the NASA-funded Advanced Global Atmospheric Gases Experiment network of ground-based stations. The network was created in the 1970s in response to international concerns about chemicals depleting the ozone layer. It is supported by NASA as part of its congressional mandate to monitor ozone-depleting trace gases, many of which also are greenhouse gases. Air samples are collected at several stations around the world. The Scripps team analyzed samples from coastal clean-air stations in California and Tasmania for this research.
The researchers found concentrations of the gas rose from about 0.02 parts per trillion in 1978 to 0.454 parts per trillion in 2008. The samples also showed significantly higher concentrations of nitrogen trifluoride in the Northern Hemisphere than in the Southern Hemisphere, which the researchers said is consistent with its use predominantly in that hemisphere. The current observed rate of increase of nitrogen trifluoride in the atmosphere corresponds to emissions of about 16 percent of the amount of the gas produced globally.
In response to the growing use of the gas and concerns that its emissions are not well known, scientists recently have recommended adding it to the list of greenhouse gases regulated by Kyoto.
A little background on nitrogen trifluoride (also called nitrogen fluoride, trifluoramine, trifluorammonia):
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