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After many decades of scientists warning the public that greenhouse gas emissions are contributing greatly to climate change the idea seems to have finally stuck despite obnoxious and outspoken pushback from climate deniers




 and those in the pocket of the fossil fuel industry public opinion has shifted to demand a swift transition to renewable green energy by reducing and eventually eliminating the use of fossil fuels we can mitigate





 the impact human activity has on the climate which will hopefully stave off some of the disastrous effects of the coming crisis that being said green energy is not necessarily a silver bullet new forms of energy




 production will bring with them their own problems in this episode we're going to take a look at the alarming use of a particularly scary gas in wind energy production anywhere you have complex electrical equipment you 




have an elevated risk of short circuits and fires to mitigate the risk the electrical industry uses non flammable gases to insulate medium and high voltage installations the most effective and potent of these gases




 is sulfur hexafluoride or sf6 sf6 is colorless odorless non flammable and cheap to produce it seems like the perfect choice for insulating expensive machinery the electrical industry seems to agree as it's used



 in everything from local substations to much larger power stations to wind turbines the only problem is it's a little too good at its job when it leaks into the atmosphere this synthetic gas can cause some real problems




 due to its insulating properties sf6 is twenty three and a half thousand times more potent than co2 meaning it has the highest global warming potential of any substance known to man just one kilogram of sf6 entering the atmosphere 




has the same impact as taking 24 round-trip flights from New York to London what's worse it sticks around in the atmosphere for up to a thousand years so even if there was never another leak the gas that's already escaped will 



be causing problems for generations in 2017 sf6 leaks in the EU alone were the equivalent of adding 1.3 million cars to the road for a year that's pretty alarming but if sulfur hexafluoride is so bad why are we still using 




it part of the problem comes from the fact that we're replacing fossil fuel energy with green energy fairly quickly this in itself is a good thing for environment.