Thanks to “Climate Desk” for pointing out this gem of an article.
These factoids are from the earth-friendly “Mother Jones” magazine “24 Mind-Blowing Facts About Marijuana Production in America”, referencing several federal data sources.
A few of those points:
- 80 percent of all marijuana grown in the USA comes from California, Tennessee Kentucky, Hawaii, and Washington. The vast majority comes from California.
- In 2013, California authorities seized 329 outdoor pot grow sites with: 1.2 million plants, 119,000lbs of trash, 17,000lbs of fertilizer, 40gal. of pesticides, 244 propane tanks, 61 car batteries, 89 illegal dams, and 81 miles of irrigation pipe.
- During California’s growing season, outdoor grows consumed roughly 60 million gallons of water a day – 50% more than is used by all residents of San Francisco.
- In California, indoor pot growing accounts for about 9% of household electricity use.
- For every pound of pot grown indoors, 4600lbs of carbon dioxide goes into the atmosphere. California’s production equates to emissions of 3 million cars.
- The energy needed to produce a single joint is enough to produce 18 pints of beer, and creates emissions comparable to burning a 100 watt light bulb for 25 hours.
Source: http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/03/marijuana-pot-weed-statistics-climate-change
References: Jon Gettman (2006), US Forest Service (California outdoor grow stats include small portions of Oregon and Nevada), Office of National Drug Control Policy, SF Public Utilities Commission, Evan Mills (2012).
I’m sure eco-activists will jump right on this trash-making climate-killing water-sucking pot problem we have here in California and include it right up there with the urgency of the proposed statewide plastic bag ban and banning fracking by chartering buses:
Mitchell explained that as San Diegans living at the end of the water pipeline, it is even more critical that we participate in this rally to convince Governor Brown that water is a precious natural resource more necessary than fracked oil and gas. “This awful drought effects us all and we need to stop wasting that water on fracking,” she said.
Yeah, but dude, pot is a life necessity.
Dave? Dave? Dave’s not here.
Yeah, but dude, pot growing is to a large extent an illegal alien enterprise – therefore it gets a pass.
Ohhhhh…. that explains the water shortages in California….
.
.
.
.
“POT. It’s not just for breakfast any more.”
I’m always slightly amused by all those “Celebraties” who lend their voices in support of green causes, when most of them stuff their noses & veins full of such ethically produced products as cocaine & heroin.
Anthony, the headlilne does not read smoothly. should it be …..”grown”……
The point is rather devestating to the position of the greens: they would deny us things that we can eat in order to save water, and make our power grid unstable and over priced all to ‘save the planet’, yet seem to accept without hesitation the water and CO2 footprint of a favored herb.
Why would an eco-activist try and elimate their personal source of “a poor man’s Nirvana?”
I have a hard time believing that indoor growing uses 9% of household electricity in the state. There are 38 million residents in this state.
Pot, meet Kettle.
goldminor says:
March 17, 2014 at 12:25 pm
I have a hard time believing that indoor growing uses 9% of household electricity in the state. There are 38 million residents in this state.
Difficult to measure since most of these residential operations “jump” the meter. Perhaps they simply took total power on grid minus the power measured by the meters and assumed all the missing power went to pot growing. Must be a new computer model at work.
goldminor @12:25
Growing indoors requires a lot of electricity . Given the amount of pot that is grown in CA , 9% sounds reasonable .
Don’t forget the ancillary damage: gasoline-burning midnight runs to the 7-11 for munchies, the proliferation of plastic baggies, dastardly paper production,….
Who says plants can’t think. They found a way to cultivate humans in order to benefit and expand themselves via chemical manipulation, even indoors in protected environments at great expense.
The article’s claim that one pound of pot burned produces 4,600 lbs of CO2 into the atmosphere is patently, wildly and laughably absurd. That can’t possibly be true. That would mean that matter would be created by burning pot. It would be created to the tune of 2.3 TONS of CO2 for every pound of marijuana! That’s way too wild of an exaggeration to even be remotely plausible. Was someone writing this while smoking a joint, and in his mary-jane high just added 3 or 4 more zeros because he couldn’t tell the difference between his right hand from his left?
REPLY: Not burned, the PRODUCTION of. a far different thing. This takes water transport, fertilizers, electricity etc into account. – Anthony
If you drive up and around Northern California and wounder why people are driving brand new 4X4 trucks with all the bells and whistles ($$$$$) and have ‘Earth First’ or ‘GreenPeace’ and ‘Love Animals don’t eat them’ bumper stickers it’s not because they are growing grapes. I will give you 100 guesses BUT the first 99 don’t count.
Candy’s dandy,
Liquor’s quicker,
Pot is not.
–Ogden Nash
About that title …
“For every pound of pot grown indoors, 4600lbs of carbon dioxide goes into the atmosphere. California’s production equates to emissions of 3 million cars.”
Can anyone tell me how much CO2 is in a pound and what is the volume of 4600 lbs of CO2. Let us assume it is at a temperature of 80 F but maybe someone else would know what would be the optimum temperature to grow the stuff.
California energy policy is coming full circle. They have to work extra hard to pay for the sky high grid prices and overpriced rooftop solar systems and then they have to de-stress with energy-intensive pot in their limited free time. At least they have a low carbon future ahead of them from premature death. Oh wait, they energy-intensive cremations too.
I hope this causes some cognitive dissonance in certain quarters.
Oh THAT sort of green energy 🙂
Is this so much greater than, oh, I dunno, EVERY OTHER GREEN PLANT ON EARTH? Is it even remotely comparable to the megatons of CO2 pumped out by volcanic activity every year. Do you really think I’m that stupid?
Sheesh.
Raining now, but I think that when it is dry again a few Carbon footprint camp fires are in order.
Church hypocrites can’t shine against California fruits and nuts.
We live on a carbon planet, who cares.
Is it possible that a lot of these costs relate to the production of illegal pot? For example, you may choose to grow it in your basement, but then you’ll have to provide UV light. You also have to use piped-in water. After legalization the need for these measures would be reduced. Of course, you may still need semi-automatic weapons and electrified fences, but, hey, one step at a time.
You cannot smoke tobacco anywhere in the vicinity of another living thing, yet you can destroy the planet with the evil weed and be made a hero for it.
Only in California. (and Colorado and Washington).
Is that title further bastardisation of the English language? And Gary, our American cousins won’t ‘get’ that.
Sir Paul Nurse smokes pot.
Marijuana is a green plant and like all other green plants, it is a net carbon sink in itself.
If the wild claims in this article are true–or even 1% true–then this nonproblem comes from the electricity for all those indoor grows–which are needed only because pot is illegal. Legalize possession and growing of pot, and the grow operations can move out doors.
Not all of us who like and grow medicinal marijuana think that AGW, CAGW, Climate Change, or whatever the nom de geure may be, is either dangerous or real. I love that you have no concern as to whether or not the silly stats bandied about in the article are true or not…you really believe the cops now?….you have grown incurious because you may not like MMJ? Whatever.
Why don’t you look up Dr. Donald Tashkin and his studies on MMJ? You seem to want to denigrate at any chance you have those of us who actually think, and know, that MMJ is medicine.
I love this site, I visit it daily for news and updates on all things climate. I find the fact that you relish upon every and any glint of a story about MMJ, or any marijuana, as being bad and that you dote on these stories without any critical examination quite ignorant to the reality that exists in the efficacy of MMJ. Shame on you.
Indeed, just as der mejia gloat over the fact that the wrong way driver in Tampa who killed 4 people last month had marijuana in his system, they barely found time in the story line that he was three times the limit drunk. Go ahead and drink your 18 pints, I’ll take the joint.
@GaelanClark
Again, the issue not MMJ! It is MJ, period. Stop trying to move the goal posts.
You contradict yourself. The purpose of 18 pints (or 1 or 2) is not medical, but enjoyment. Why are you now claiming you are toking for enjoyment when you started your tirade about Medical?
There goes that short term memory.
Cannabis–a life enriching therapeutic plant that was once the fabric of our lives (hence the word CANVAS)–was outlawed worldwide for the benefit of Du Pont..
Same story as CFCs.
The Australian government website states that our laws were imposed on us by the U.S.government.
99% of pot users who read this article will not recall ever reading this article.
@AEGeneral – Correction: 97%. 😉
LOL
Governor Moon Beam Brown and President Low Beam Obama are seriously behind the 8-Ball.
😀
this whole CO2 bad thing is really more of a guideline than a rule.
Well I learned something new today!
Technically the title to the article is correct. According to pot sites, the actual plots where MJ is planted are called “grows”. So it’s grammatically correct to call an area where it’s grown, a “Marijuana grow”.
http://www.thevillagenews.com/story/47256/
“How do young people in the Fallbrook area get their hands on marijuana? ”
“It seems that much of the marijuana in Fallbrook comes from home-cultivated outdoor marijuana gardens called “grows” and these sites are increasing.”
By the by, your first bullet point is BULLSHYT….mother jones includes 4 other states with that 80% number.
And yet it is us “potheads” who can’t read, remember, or do anything productive. Great one duuuuuuuuuuuude.
The energy needed to produce a single joint is enough to produce 18 pints of beer, and creates emissions comparable to burning a 100 watt light bulb for 25 hours.
****
I dunno, I burn alot of propane to make a 10 gallon batch of beer and transporting all the stuff to my door takes alot of fuel and that if after the hops and barley are harvested…
Ouch! A serious blow hitting the AWG and pseudo green community …
@Adam Did you mean such (un)ethically produced?
gaelansclark says:
March 17, 2014 at 1:31 pm
“By the by, your first bullet point is BULLSHYT….mother jones includes 4 other states with that 80% number.
And yet it is us “potheads” who can’t read, remember, or do anything productive. Great one duuuuuuuuuuuude.”
Nobody ever said that your short term memory is destroyed by pot. You should still be able to do arithmetic.
AEGeneral says:
March 17, 2014 at 1:25 pm
99% of pot users who read this article will not recall ever reading this article.
= = = = == =
That’s just propaganda.
IN FACT, cannabis stimulates neurogenesis:
http://www.jci.org/articles/view/25509
The U.S. Department of Health & Human Services knows it: they own a patent on cannabinoids for protecting the brain from age-related damage – patent #6630507.
Look it up.
“But anyway, drink beer, drink beer drink beer. Why?
Because it makes you slow, stupid and docile – and that”s the way we like you”
– Bill Hicks
GaelanClark says:
March 17, 2014 at 1:21 pm
“Indeed, just as der mejia gloat over the fact that the wrong way driver in Tampa who killed 4 people last month had marijuana in his system, they barely found time in the story line that he was three times the limit drunk. Go ahead and drink your 18 pints, I’ll take the joint.”
Don’t believe us; go read Junkie by Sam Burroughs; he’s the expert and he’ll tell you the same thing that I can tell you, namely that MJ , especially unexpected flashbacks a day later, switch off your 3D perception while driving from one moment to the next, and good luck if you’re in dense traffic. Happened to me, 30 years ago; and convinced me that a driving license and MJ are not friends so I stuck with the driving license.
MJ users are time bombs when behind the steering wheel.
Khwarizmi says:
March 17, 2014 at 1:41 pm
“AEGeneral says:
March 17, 2014 at 1:25 pm
99% of pot users who read this article will not recall ever reading this article.
= = = = == =
That’s just propaganda.
IN FACT, cannabis stimulates neurogenesis:”
…and blocks transfer of short term memory to long term memory…
…Nobody ever smoked himself to a Nobel price…
I spend considerable time on an electrical contractor’s forum. With legalization comes regulation, and now folks are calling professionals to get things done right. Some literature suggests that indoor grow operations call for 250 watts/sqft. This includes light, pumps, humidifiers, and then A/C to remove all the heat. If you were designing a home, the required electrical service would be based on 3 watts/sqft. So your 10′ x 10′ closet will be pushing 25,000 watts of power, 24/7. That comes to 18,000 kWh in a 30-day month. My three bedroom one bath home with 1,168 gross sq ft uses about 1,000 kWhr per month. So pot production uses eighteen times the energy in one tenth the square footage.
Another bullshYt stat from mother jones…..4 plants takes up as much energy as 29 refrigerators….FAIL
4 plants = 600w light 12 hours per day = 7.2kwh per day x 63 days = 453.6kwh (at $0.12per kwh = $54.43 TOTAL OVER THE LIFE OF THOSE 4 PLANTS….and you could easily get 8 more plants under that light)
29 refrigerators being used at their average rate for 63 days use 8,108kwh
1 fridge = 1620kwh per year / 365 = 4.438 x 63 = 279kwh x 29 = (at $0.12per kwh = $972.96 TOTAL OVER THE LIFE OF THOSE 4 PLANTS) WOW WOW WOW
(Source for those numbers = https://www.efficiencyvermont.com/For-My-Home/ways-to-save-and-rebates/Appliances/Refrigerators/General-Info/Electric-Usage-Chart –Refrigerator – 22 CF, side-by-side, 20 years old)
Hey, breathless in Chico, get your facts straight!
I couldn’t care less how much co2 is emitted by growing a pound of pot. But I do like the moral dilemma the average Mother Jones reader is facing today.
DirkH
It was William Borroughs, that wife-killing junkie.
I’ve read the book. It’s colorful, and not a 100% true, mostly fiction, and it doesn’t even attribute to cannabis what you say it does. His main compalin is “I got the fears” – i.e., temporary paranoia.
That fear might have stopped him shooting his wife.
And we wasn’t a scientist.
Perhaps you can find a study supporting your claim instead.
sorry – “main complaint.”
DirkH….are you high right now? Because I am laughing out loud at your ridiculousness.
The “novel”–(a fictitious prose narrative of book length, typically representing character and action with some degree of realism)–by William Seward Burroughs II does not count in my reading for information related to the efficacy or the deleterious effects of MMJ.
[trimmed. mod]
@gaelansclark – there goes that short term memory. You tried moving the goal posts. The subject was NOT medical MJ, it was MJ. Period.
The new EPA Pot Growing Regulations are going to go over really well with the Eco-Nuts. Can’t wait to see all of the Global Warming Protests outside of the Pot Shops and Pot Farms.
DJHawkins—plants don’t flower under 24 hours of light and plants will soon die under 24 hours of light.
The max wattage lights are on for only 12 hours per day–flowering.
The mother and clone lights are on for 18 hours per day, but they are a fraction of the total. One uses low wattage shop light type lights(full spectrum) for this cycle.
Your numbers are way off, period.
Smoking pot is actually good for your CO2 foot print. Say, if you are stoned all weekend, you can’t drive!! ff, on the other hand, you go on a roadtrip for the weekend, you can burn 2000 litres of fuel! It is high time (sic!) that more states legalise, or else we can’t meet the 2C target anymore 😉
Rabelad says:
March 17, 2014 at 12:52 pm
The article’s claim that one pound of pot burned produces 4,600 lbs of CO2 into the atmosphere is patently, wildly and laughably absurd.
_________________
In addition to all power usages mentioned, many indoor growers release CO2 into the grow rooms to maximize leaf mass/lumen. Powered ventilation is necessary to remove humidity and to replenish CO2 levels. Growers in cold climates have been discovered and busted by ice formation around the exhaust vents.
You think the numbers are absurd? If your calculator works, you can prove it.
Okay, okay, I get the “trimming” of my comment. You are good to do so as well.
Will you now change the first bullet point to reflect at least what the original article actually states?
Resourceguy says:
March 17, 2014 at 12:44 pm
Who says plants can’t think. They found a way to cultivate humans in order to benefit and expand themselves via chemical manipulation, even indoors in protected environments at great expense.
============================================================================
ROTFLMAO
Super come back with detailed information. NOT. The load is leveled over the various activities.
You argue with the man, and I repeat the link since you didn’t bother looking at the top of the post:
http://evan-mills.com/energy-associates/Indoor_files/Indoor-cannabis-energy-use.pdf
His estimate was 200 watts/sqft, but some of the things people are proposing to do are pushing it up another 50 watts. There is undoubtedly room for improvement, but today is what today is. See the full discussion (with occasional humorous comments) here:
http://forums.mikeholt.com/showthread.php?t=159842&highlight=marijuana
You can’t comment without signing up, and it’s restricted to those in the electrical profession, but anyone can look.
Mojo says:
March 17, 2014 at 1:04 pm
Do you really think I’m that stupid?
Sheesh.
_______________
We weren’t going to say anything to you.
Really.
Once the enviromentalists rid the planet of all power sources that emit carbon, how long will it take them to rid the planet of the infestation of carbon-based life forms?
MattS – I am glad you asked. Everybody says that plants can’t think. Nobody says that they do. Pleasure to help 😉
…this is the first step to getting pot heads to pay carbon credits
Khwarizmi on March 17, 2014 at 1:41 pm
An alkaloid that’s good for the brain??? The reward system of the brain is designed for carb’s, not alkaloids, alcohol(s) or any other syntetic drug! It’s a “design” flaw and not difficult to figure out! Well, if not the brain already is damaged enough by the substance though … In admitting an addiction, the first stage is any kind of denial …
Patent on natural stuff and derivates? Mother Nature is the rightworthy owner of those kinds of patents … A serious patent office will not pass anything that in some way or close to exist in nature or is limited in design (like software “patents”)), but a greedy/corrupt one will … Patents may be good, but can also completly limit a free market and slow down or even stop the process of inventions. That’s not progress …
DirkH on March 17, 2014 at 1:47 pm
“…Nobody ever smoked himself to a Nobel price…”
Why do I start thinking about a specific mann …?
@SasjaL says:
March 17, 2014 at 3:07 pm
Patents are of two general types; process or composition. Utilization of plant derivatives might fall under either one. A process patent might cover how the useful compound is extracted and purified. A composition patent might cover the useful delivery mechanism including powder, liquid, aeresol or ointment and inlude diluents and co-agents. A serious patent office ought to consider all these items. None of these would touch on the formula for the base compound.
You can probably harvest your own willow bark, but I like to reach for my bottle of Bayer.
So…if we removed pot from California maybe sanity would return to climate science?
LadyLifeGrows says:
March 17, 2014 at 1:20 pm
Marijuana is a green plant and like all other green plants, it is a net carbon sink in itself.
If the wild claims in this article are true–or even 1% true–then this nonproblem comes from the electricity for all those indoor grows–which are needed only because pot is illegal. Legalize possession and growing of pot, and the grow operations can move out doors.
——————————————-
Good points.
With legalization we could reduce the international trafficking foot print as well .. why support drug lord mafia type government or extreme moslem terrorists high on heroin with a take over agenda of many young and old Americans already hooked on heroin. And using American dollars, wreaking havoc in the lives of countless others, to fund their schemes.
I think Colorado’s 32%? state tax is a bit much. That only keeps the illegal pot cheaper. They had their millions estimated and spent before passing legislation.
To Country Joe Mc Donald off Paris Sessions Lp..
Colorado Town
…just trying to make it back home with a lid or two..
hey where are you going, what are you doing, have you got some identification?
http://youtu.be/VjrDVDfNFmw?t=22m57s
I have to say, this article triggers my bullshit detectors big time. The numbers suggest that growing 1 pound of pot requires 1150 pounds of coal to be burned. My brother in law (legally) grows medical marijuana indoors in Michigan. Lights and heat and water for the plants — even in cold Michigan — cost at most a small fraction of the total energy cost of his household.
Wikipedia tells us this useful fact:
“Coal-fired electric power generation emits around 2,000 pounds of carbon dioxide for every megawatt-hour generated…”
The article thus suggests that growing one pound of pot costs well over two megawatt-hours of energy. To put this in perspective, that is the equivalent of running a kilowatt’s worth of grow lights for 2000 hours — a reasonable growing season — per pound. I rather suspect that is off (too high) by around an order of magnitude.
To put it into dollar perspective, at 10 cents a kilowatt-hour (roughly half of California rates IIRC) 2 MW-hours = 2000 KW-hours = $200 (or more reasonably, $400 in CA) worth of electricity per pound grown.
So I suspect that this is either propaganda or the product of somebody’s arithmetic-free imagination.
Of course, it would be a lot more cost effective to grow pot in a greenhouse or open field — hemp basically is a weed crossbred by humans, after all — if it weren’t for the fact that it still is insanely expensive and sufficient motive to attract thieves willing to use deadly force to obtain it. At least indoors you have a chance of keeping the world from knowing that you are growing it.
In ten more years, pot will very likely be legal in almost all of the states, either flat out legal or legal for “medical” use within some restrictions. In twenty, it will be legal everywhere, and historians will be writing about the absurdity and human cost of the 90 prohibition and persecution of pot (compared to other human vices legal and illegal it is positively benign, with the greatest single risk factor from using it being the fact that you could be arrested, which is very bad for your health, your freedom, and your life, far worse than any effect of the drug itself (and the second greatest risk factor is the risk of violence in the organized criminal distribution system that provides it). If/when growing it is legal almost everywhere, so that the black market disappears, perhaps people will grow it outdoors in sufficient quantity that it is no more worth stealing than somebody’s tomatoes.
Think of all of the carbon dioxide we’ll save! In fact, at that point, pot will be a valuable CO_2 sink. At least transiently.
rgb
Far out man! Uh…wait. What?
D.J. Hawkins on March 17, 2014 at 3:20 pm
Sorry for not being clear enough, my bad!
I was basically refering to the so called “patent” on cannabinoids. A process that the marujana plant already have been
D.J. Hawkins on March 17, 2014 at 3:20 pm
[obummer …]
… marijuana plant already have been using long before the patent was granted …
@rgbatduke says:
March 17, 2014 at 3:34 pm
The report is only 13 pages long, and lists all the assumptions and calculations. I didn’t see anything that looked bat-shit crazy. Maybe one of our BS detectors needs re-calibration. For the one thing you specifically mentioned, the 1kW grow light, that’s what is in the standard 4-plant grow module. Run time is 12 hours per day for 60 days during the 78 day cycle. Production per cycle is about 1.5 pounds dry weight. And all that is just the grow light. As Willis says, show the man where he’s wrong.
hunter says: the headline does not read smoothly. should it be …..”grown”……
Yes, I had to read it about 5 times too, before I could work out that “grows” is apparently a noun and not a verb.
“a grow” is a new one on me.
“Marijuana grows in California …” sure does. Rest of the phrase makes not sense.
@Greg and Hunter “a grow” is common police speak here for an illegal pot farm. But I can see how you’d be all flummoxed by that. So I’ll change it for you out-of-staters that find it problematic.
Did you read the actual patent, and not the fluff on some legalization site?
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=6630507.PN.&OS=PN/6630507&RS=PN/6630507
To call it tough sledding is an understatement, but they are clearly talking mostly about compounds other than TCH. Just because it says “cannabinoid” doesn’t mean it comes from Cannabis Sativa. Many of the compounds are synthesized. The patent appears to be a composition patent, given all the group substitutions they are talking about. Without some expensive equipment and very high level lab skills, you couldn’t take your homegrown MJ and produce the theraputic compounds as described in the patent, and thus achieve the theraputic results described therein. Smoking a joint will NOT keep a stroke from turning you into a vegetable.
DirkH says:
March 17, 2014 at 1:47
…Nobody ever smoked himself to a Nobel price…
Yes he did, and blew enough smoke to make the White House.
Think of all of the carbon dioxide we’ll save! In fact, at that point, pot will be a valuable CO_2 sink. At least transiently.
rgb
Wow, “carbon-free” marijuana. What a selling point.
What they don’t seem to have accounted for is all the helicopter flight hours that the DEA , FBI LAPD are obliged to put in burning carbon dirty fossil fuels. Then there’s the cost of building and heating prisons, and the energy and materials wasted repairing all the kicked in doors.
The carbon footprint may be larger than they thought. It’s outrageous, it should be banned!
Oh wait, it is. That didn’t work. Perhaps we need to try something else.
rgbatduke says:
March 17, 2014 at 3:34 pm
——–
and others.
This is from Mother Jones! Has anyone EVER read a truthful article in MJ? The ragazine is for sheeple.
Big mistake. Do not try to reason with hippie-crits. Facts are meaningless to such individuals.
1kW grow light, that’s what is in the standard 4-plant grow module. Run time is 12 hours per day for 60 days during the 78 day cycle. Production per cycle is about 1.5 pounds dry weight.
Well, let’s see, 12×60 = 720 hours. 720×2/3 = 480 hours (for one pound). 480 x 1000 = 480 KW-hours. 4600 pounds of CO_2 is the equivalent of ~2150 KW/hours. This means that the actual cost in electricity is less than 1/4 of what is being asserted, assuming that one is growing pot in a “standard 4 plant module” instead of in a larger space at a larger scale, where one very likely can support more than 4 plants on 1 KW. I’m suggesting that the number is likely closer to 10. Water and etc are a highly variable energy cost — if you are growing pot in a very dry location and don’t conserve greenhouse moisture or have to run air conditioning to dump the heat from the light bulbs, sure, it might be significant. In general, however, I suspect that it is a small fraction of the cost of the electricity, basically a correction. If you use a lot of fertilizer, that might cost some more energy, but again, likely a correction, not an extra factor.
Perhaps what they mean is that “if the growers do things at the worst possible scale, paying the highest possible prices in the least efficient environment in terms of water cost and availability at the worst time of year, they can manage to generate 4600 pounds of CO_2 growing a pound of pot”. On average? I don’t think so. Your own argument should convince you that you shouldn’t think so either, since you just demonstrated that the argument is off by a factor of 4 if you grow only 4 plants at a time with a single light and hence waste a large solid angle of the produced light. And that is before one factors in the use of natural light, local stream or well or grey water, energy generated by means of natural gas (which produces a lot less CO_2), energy generated by nuclear plants or hydroelectric plants (which may not be common in CA, don’t know) or even solar power, however stupid it is to use a solar farm to make the electricity to run grow lights indoors. Also there is good reason to believe that professionals, seeking to minimize costs where it matters, have long since adopted LED growing lights:
http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/hubs-energy-efficiency1
that at least halve, if not quarter, production costs even from the levels you suggest above.
BTW, all of this is really very old news, and I didn’t buy it the first time. The assertions that growing pot is responsible for some horrendous fraction — 1% is an oft-cited number — of the net electricity consumption of the United States dates back at least to 2011, if not to 2006. I personally think it is part of the effort to legalize it — by suggesting that we can cut national energy consumption and production of CO_2 by 1% tomorrow if we legalized pot at the federal level and removed ALL government restrictions on it throughout the states, pot smokers and green warmists can leverage their mutual agendas.
That number — 1% — supposedly takes into account everything. Heating and cooling homes. Industry. Lighting city streets with lights that do nothing at all but stay on all night and consume kilowatts per city block, kilowatts per parking lot, kilowatts per store. For this estimate to be plausible, how many pounds of pot have to be grown per linear mile of lighted roadway? Seriously, I just don’t buy it.
rgb
Ack! TCH = TCH.
And I STILL can’t get it right… TCH =THC.
Well, this will put and end to all the nonsense coming from the University students. And the protests and petitions. Maybe even a few of the Professors will lighten up now, who knows.
@rgbatduke says:
March 17, 2014 at 4:41 pm
Oh brother… You did snip the part where I said this was JUST for the lights, I noticed. And you didn’t read the report, where the 0.6 kW lights go on for the other 18 days? And the numbers for pumps, dehumidifiers, drying, air conditioning, etc?
I see The Guardian article is light on numbers, long on claims. No doubt Dr. Mills could recalculate his work if more information on yield vs the spectrum shitf in LED’s was forthcoming. How about you do him and us a favor and read his work before offering off-the-cuff criticisms?
DirkH says: …Nobody ever smoked himself to a Nobel price…
oh, you have nooooo idea.
this kind of ignorance merits encouragement, though, so i won’t mention polymerase chain reaction or anything that might shatter your bliss.
A number of posters in this thread seem to have forgotten a basic tenet of CAGW, mainly that it is only the CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuels that cause CAGW. All other CO2 emissions have either no effect or are beneficial.
So, smoke ’em if you got ’em.
🙂
Hothouse tomatoes can be purchased for $1.50 per pound here. They have roughly the same growing time as weed. In reality, this article is BS.
DJHawkins……”he says 200 watts per sq ft, maybe an extra 50 more”–my paraphrase…..
You are kidding me right? 4 by 4 table = 16 sq feet x 200 = 3200watts of lights!!! That is beyond ridiculous and patently absurd.
No person on this planet has ever used that much wattage per square foot. Period.
This is not an argument, I am telling you how it is.
March 17, 2014 at 12:07 pm | Gary says:
This is the PO-leez, open up !
In another thread, something involving terpenes of pine trees and climate change, I posted that cannabis plants have terpenes too. I also mentioned that some people clean the harvested leaves with dry ice, or carbon dioxide and some dry ice produce by burning fossil fuels. I had asked if this hurt or helped the earth. I was curious because we’re at the beginning stage of legalizing it state by state and it may increase production. I’m imagining it becoming a big agribusiness on the scale of tobacco.
What is this, knucklehead night? Next you’ll be telling me how if I sail past the horizon, I’ll fall off the edge of the world, and that’s “how it is”. Come back after you read the ‘effing paper. Then we can discuss the good doctor’s assumptions and calculations. And by the way, it’s not 200 watts/sqft of lighting. Which you would know if you’d actually read the 13 pages. It’s 200 watts/sqft of overall demand.
From Breathless in Chico…”A few of those points:
80 percent of all marijuana grown in the USA comes from California.”
From the original article…”80 percent comes from California, Tennessee, Kentucky, Hawaii, and Washington.”
What THE F is up with that? Is this the level that you stoop too? Just make up your own bs?
I’m qualified in horticulture, I can tell you for a fact California has a fantastic climate for growing exotic plants, if you want to boost the crop of any commercial plant, increase the conditions favorable for it to grow, in Ireland you wouldn’t grow potatoes or beets in a greenhouse unless you were producing a very expensive product.
I read the paper DJ Hawkins. The person who wrote the paper is making assumptions that simply do not pan out in the real world. A little like people who make models that do not relate to reality.
Have you ever grown indoors? Has the good Dr who wrote this paper ever grown indoors?
13,000kwh for a 16 square foot area per year is BS.
Again, this is not an argument. You are being told what is real from experience and the hard knocks of learning by doing. Alas, keep reading your junk papers.
By the way, my comment above outlining the cost to refrigerator ratio can not be challenged because those numbers are real and not some pie in the sky crap.
Hippi-crits Indeed, alexwade! Beautiful!
Here in the socialist ecotopia of Washington state and across the US, we have railed and ranted for decades against the evils of ‘Big Tobacco’. Smoking is bad. Second hand smoke is bad. The Sturgeon General warned us on TV, billboards, etc.: “Smoking Is Bad!” This new age socially unacceptable behavior had to be stopped, for the good of everyone. So we made smoking illegal in most public places and taxed the living hippi-crit right out of it! Today, the Washington state tax on a pack of 20 cigarettes is $3.025 …. but the state is unhappy because their tax revenue source is disappearing as most people have stopped smoking.
Hmmmmmmm – How can a state full of hippi-crits recover from declining cigarette tax revenues?
“Hey! How about creating a whole new tobacco growing, distributing, and smoking industry??!!! YEAH – Marijuana! That’s The TICKET!”
(“But, er… the Sturgeon General told us smoking was bad… and we should never start or, if we did smoke, stop right away, ’cause it can cause cancer… and emphysema… and stuff??”)
“Pay no attention to that guy behind the keyboard folks! This isn’t a case of ‘The Pot Calling The Kettle Black’…. it’s a case of The State Treasury is in the Red! We gotta get us some tax money!”
Soooooo… We created a Washington state commercial marijuana growing, distributing, retail sales and smoking (Oh Baby!) industry! We expanded the state bureaucracies (Oh! Oh Baby!) to license and tax (Oh Baby! OH BABY!!) every stage of it too! It’s “Green” (like money!) from one side to the other! But wait – There’s more! If Washington can push through a ‘CO2 source’ tax, they’ll be able to tax folks both inhaling and exhaling!
Think you might want to grow your own ‘little garden in the backyard by the fence’, strictly for personal consumption? THAT won’t generate any license or tax revenues, you damn tax evaders, so THAT is gonna stay illegal! If the state can’t tax it, Axe It!
That’s how we Roll y’all, here in the hippi-crit socialist ecotopia of Washington State!
Now, should we have a little Doobie Brothers, to go with that ‘torpedo’? No – I think this will be more poignant… enjoy! He’s An Old Hippie – The Bellamy Brothers
http://youtu.be/zCa4Hj_czYA
4 x 4 area = 1 600 w light (do the numbers with a 1000w light if you want), 1 h2o pump, 1 6th of 1 exhaust fan, 1 6th of 1 1200 w indoor A/C unit, 1 6th of 1 (propane powered) CO2 gen, 1 oscillating fan.
Light is on for 12 hours.
Pump is on for 15 minutes.
Exhaust fan is on for 8 hours (max).
CO2 is propane.
Oscillating Fan is on for 8 hours.
You do the math. Or do you really need a Ph.D to add it up for yourself?
You and your guys numbers do not add up. PERIOD.
[CO2 is propane? I don’t think so. Also note that the article numbers are by Mother Jones, quoted here -mod]
Oh yeah, Ac on for 10 hours
D.J. Hawkins March 17, 2014 at 6:15 pm
Tobacco, tea and coco is expensive because it is grown in greenhouses! wrong.
Your PhD would have me spending $780 per month on a six light array. Much like one that I actually had when I lived in Colorado. That $780 would be 13,000kwh x 6 x .12(cost per kwh) / 12 = $780.
My electric bill never went over $450. PERIOD. And that was with me living in the house using power for all of my own needs.
The paper makes assumptions that are not real. And here you go, sucking it up like all of those models that tell you the global temp is rising and we are all doomed. DOOMED.
gaelansclark says:
March 17, 2014 at 6:33 pm
600w metal halide during 18 days of leaf for 18 hours per day, 1000w high pressure sodium for 60 days for 12 hours per day. Fan on during lights on, so 12 or 18 hours per day, not 8. If you have a 1000w heating load (lamp), how do you remove this with 1/6th of a 1200w A/C unit? Where are you getting all the other 1/6th multipliers in fact? Pump on for 1 hour per day, not 15 minutes. And on and on. All numbers on his side are from manufacturer’s cut sheets, trade media, open literature, or the supply houses. If you grow your weed they way you say, I guess you’re just not that good at it.
Mother Jones is straight party politics. Numbers are pulled out of thin air to match the policy they want to establish.
The next “truth” they print would be the first.
@ Michael says:
March 17, 2014 at 12:53 pm
If you drive up and around Northern California and wounder why people are driving brand new 4X4 trucks with all the bells and whistles ($$$$$) and have ‘Earth First’ or ‘GreenPeace’ and ‘Love Animals don’t eat them’ bumper stickers it’s not because they are growing grapes. I will give you 100 guesses BUT the first 99 don’t count.
_____________________________________________________________
‘Love Animals…’ Ok, I KNEW there was something wrong with those Treehuggers! Are they “hugging” little bunnies and lambs now too??!
Weirdos!
Seriously, I agree with them, sort of—I love animals, too: they taste great with the right barbeque sauce…
But my all-time favorite bumper sticker:
“Earth First! (We’ll strip mine the other planets later…)”
But ja, I have to agree, I have a problem with the production of one pound of grass producing over 4600 lbs of CO2. I’m no farmer, but I do garden. That just doesn’t pass the sniff test. And they don’t mention methane at all (think fertilizers), etc., at all. Sounds like more of that “Every Google search burns enough joules to boil a pot of coffee” sort of thing.
For example, the study says, “Based on the model developed in this article, approximately
13,000 kW/h/year of electricity is required to operate a standard production module (a 1.2×1.2×2.4 m (4x4x8 ft) chamber). Each module yields approximately 0.5 kg (1 pound) of final product per cycle, with four or five production cycles conducted per year. A single grow house can contain 10 to 100 such modules.”
100 4x4x8 foot modules. Seriously? THAT’s a BIIIIIG house. Sorry; no sale. I haven’t had time to more than skim the thing; but the paragraphs leading up to the “3 million cars” quote—yes, that’s actually in the Evans 2012 report—seem to make a lot of assumptions; like that everyone who grows the stuff is high-tech to the max. I think a residence that drew as much power as a small office complex would be VERY easy for DEA to suss out.
It all sounds very logical, the way he puts it, but still—over two-and-a-quarter tons of CO2 for every pound of marijuana? How is it that a rainforest then is such a large CO2 sink?
I need to get smarter on this, but does this make sense to anyone else? It appears as if they just ran numbers for the power required by their assumptions, did a little math on what a coal-fired powerplant would produce as a byproduct in CO2, and bam! there ya have it. As Perry Mason might’ve said, they’re arguing facts not in evidence. Or so it appears to me.
DirkH says:
March 17, 2014 at 1:47 pm
Not true if you include the Nobel Peace prize.
None of this makes sense, but 10 million tons of CO2 could be produced by growing/using pot and it wouldn’t make one scintilla of difference in the climate.
Chad Wozniak says:
March 17, 2014 at 7:38 pm
None of this makes sense, but 10 million tons of CO2 could be produced by growing/using pot and it wouldn’t make one scintilla of difference in the climate.
Chad,
That’s the Straight Dope, Holmes!
All that fuming about plants per kilo-watts is just a smoke screen for more CO2 fraud.
It’s harshing my WUWT buzz, Man!
Mac
@gaelansclark says:
March 17, 2014 at 6:01 pm
DJHawkins……”he says 200 watts per sq ft, maybe an extra 50 more”–my paraphrase…..
You are kidding me right? 4 by 4 table = 16 sq feet x 200 = 3200watts of lights!!! That is beyond ridiculous and patently absurd.
No person on this planet has ever used that much wattage per square foot. Period.
This is not an argument, I am telling you how it is.
I beg to differ.
I work in a building about the size of your average bowling alley that consumes more than two megawatts of continuous power, 24×7, and all we do is push a few electrons around inside some computers to do studies in quantum electrodynamics, cataloging the results of nuclear magnetic resonance imaging and X-ray crystallography, and to record the mundane day-to-day inner-workings of a big-pharma company (which keeps all of the accountants and auditors at the FDA happy).
The entire building, including where us humans hang out, consumes more than 100 watts per sq ft. The portion where the computers reside consumes more than 500 watts per sq ft. Our standard 10 kVA rack is only 24 inches wide, and 30 inches deep, which works out to 1,666 watts per sq ft. If you include the required air-conditioning load to remove that heat, the load tops 2,100 watts per sq ft on a rack-by-rack basis. There are almost 1000 racks. The electric bill for all of this runs more than $ 1.4 million per year.
We have another building just a tad larger that has an electric bill of more than $1 million per month! Just a few more computers doing no real work from a thermodynamics point of view.
Speaking of thermodynamics, at 2,100 watts per sq ft we are pushing the density limits of what can be handled by traditional air handling methods. Most of the heat ultimately leaves the building via air-to-water heat-exchangers and a pair of 12 inch water mains. Google has some interesting computer rooms (acres really), that push way beyond that density by doing away with the air altogether and supplying the cooling water directly to the servers. (see http://www.google.com/about/datacenters/ )
This is not an argument, I am just telling you how it is.
Never would have imagined the traction this post garnered. Lots of rush to judgment. There are plenty of skeptic hipsters. I say we send a bag to Mikee. He could totally use the “clarification”.
@p@ Dolan says:
March 17, 2014 at 7:29 pm
100 modules is not that big a house. That’s just 1,600 sq ft. If all you did was grow pot in the house, do you think it would be hard to find one? In NJ, you can’t hardly find new construction under 3,000 sq ft unless it’s city rehabs. You admit it’s pretty logical; take it line by line and play with the numbers yourself. People have to remember this is not your puttering-around-in garden. These are commercial push-the-product-out-the-door operations. They’re not growing for home consumption.
@ D. J. Hawkins, re your 1.07 AM 18 March:
Roger that these are commercial hustlers. Also that new construction is up there a skosh, and 3000ft isn’t a manse. but while it’s true that 100 modules is only 1600 sq ft, that’s entirely 1600 sq ft. No room edgewise between them to get equipment in or out, no way to harvest and drag that out, etc. I do integration design work inside structures. You would need space around or on one side of each of those modules to access them and the product. You would end up with a lot more than just a 1600 ft house, and when they build houses, they build houses, not warehouses. To build an essentially empty building, like a storage warehouse or godown, would be a dead-giveaway in a residential neighborhood, doncha think? And as some else said, while the energy use quoted in the study isn’t excessively large, compared to the use of an office building in a large city, it would be extraordinarily large in a residential neighborhood, once house that used as much energy or more than the local strip-mall, with Walmart, BJ’s, MacDonalds, Pizza Hut and Cinema-plex.
I’m not saying it can’t be done or hasn’t been; I just don’t believe it’s being done on the scale they claim as even the minimum in the study. I believe that anyone pursuing such an enterprise would distribute it much wider, and not try to maximize the produce from each location, in order to spread out the power/water etc. consumption. And it’s such a large cash-crop, it would support such inefficiencies, if their numbers are correct.
Even so—I still haven’t heard or read anything which relieves some of the shock at the thought that growing one, single pound of fiberous green, leafy material (and a few seeds) creates a byproduct of Four Thousand, Six-Hundred pounds of CO2. I can follow the math which proves that the use of a Prius actually creates more CO2 as a hidden cost than it saves. I’ve seen that math. This study hasn’t done that math (or if it has, it’s buried where I haven’t dug it out yet), but makes a similar claim—based on various sources for the numbers.
I’m not saying it’s wrong—-just that I’m having a hard time believing it. Color me skeptical, but it just doesn’t seem possible—and I’m not talking about putting hundreds of 4x4x8 units in a condo, but the 1:4600 lb ration, grass to gas.
rgbatduke says:
March 17, 2014 at 3:34 pm
============
You make some good points.
“Who says plants can’t think. They found a way to cultivate humans in order to benefit and expand themselves via chemical manipulation, even indoors in protected environments at great expense”
Someone should cross weed and pot?
‘Dave’s not here!’
First of all, in states where it’s legal “Grow houses” aren’t really HOUSES…like residences. They are warehouses the size of large nurseries. From the Denver Post-
“Commercial real estate tracker Xceligent Inc. estimates that marijuana cultivation and manufacturing facilities in the city occupy about 4.5 million square feet — the equivalent of 78 football fields.”
http://www.denverpost.com/marijuana/ci_25316132/pot-growing-warehouses-short-supply-demand-legal-weed
So JUST in Denver, you’re talking about about 4.5 million square feet….lights, electricity, fans, water etc.
If the guy who did the study is talking about “grow houses” of the same size, then his calculations might be close to accurate. I don’t really care enough about the topic to do the research. But here’s some links for consideration among those who do.
“collective grows” in California are technically legal, as a STATE venture, but the feds aren’t happy about it.
http://blog.sfgate.com/smellthetruth/2013/12/21/california-medical-marijuana-laws-starting-a-grow-collective-and-dispensary/
Article about grow house bust in which “each house contained 1,000- 2,000 plants.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2013/03/10-arrested-charged-for-alleged-roles-marijuana-grow-house-ring.html
Here’s video footage inside a secret warehouse GROW-
http://www.nbclosangeles.com/video/#!/on-air/as-seen-on/Inside-a-San-Fernando-Valley-Marijuana-Grow-House/179110991
Images and story of a grow house in Santa Barbara
http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/Huge-Pot-Grow-House-Captured-in-Santa-Barbara-100587329.html
My point-whatever Joe Schmo growing pot in his HOUSE is doing, is NOT on the same scale or quality as what professional pot growers are doing.
Ok…let me try this again.
The idea that the article is talking about HOUSES…as in residences, is inaccurate. These “Grow Houses” are the size of warehouses-nurseries….like this:
http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/Huge-Pot-Grow-House-Captured-in-Santa-Barbara-100587329.html
Here’s one in the San Fernando Valley-video-
http://www.nbclosangeles.com/video/#!/on-air/as-seen-on/Inside-a-San-Fernando-Valley-Marijuana-Grow-House/179110991
Or this:
“Ten people were arrested Wednesday by state and local authorities and charged in connection with a ring that operated marijuana grow houses across Southern California.
Authorities served search warrants at 26 locations, including 15 that were grow houses, across Los Angeles, Riverside and San Bernardino counties. Authorities seized more than $250,000 in cash, seven guns–including an assault rifle–and more than 8,000 marijuana plants. Each house contained an average of 1,000 to 2,000 pot plants.”
From a Denver Post article-
“Commercial real estate tracker Xceligent Inc. estimates that marijuana cultivation and manufacturing facilities in the city occupy about 4.5 million square feet — the equivalent of 78 football fields.”
http://www.denverpost.com/marijuana/ci_25316132/pot-growing-warehouses-short-supply-demand-legal-weed
Whatever Joe Schmo is doing in his HOUSE, is more than likely NOT the same thing that professional pot growers are doing in their warehouses.
It’s just like climate science; you don’t have to put your coat on and go out in the weather, you just have to read some stuff and proclaim your truth. Sure, you might be out by a factor of two or three on six or seven points, but they probably cancel each other out! Right?
Then you could completely ignore the most salient point, do you get a pound a light or a pound and a half? Do you go 60 days flowering or 70? Do you force a hundred plants after one week or five plants after a month?
If a pound of salable product costs you 750 kW hours for light , can you imagine that climate control and irrigation will triple that figure?
And no, C3H8 isn’t CO2 exactly, but when you burn it …
The Grauniad is a go-to source for a few people, but if I wanted to grow plants under LED’s, I would only install red and blue diodes, not the yellows that dominate in the picture but that don’t interest plants. Also, I would suspend them much closer to the growing canopy since they don’t put out much heat and the light becomes more diffuse with distance. There’s probably an inverse square elaboration for that. I don’t think I’d bother with the cooling ducts for the lamp arrays, either. Maybe they just adapted a high pressure sodium system.
And then there’s convection!
The climate people are very keen on radiation and, I’ll grant you, it’s a fascinating topic.
Now I see that building managers are fond of the latent heat of evaporation and that’s very cool, too.
Pot growers like convection, dude. It’s blowing in the wind.
If you don’t like the temperature of the air you’ve got, get rid of it. The air and the temperature, not just the temperature. A nine amp (120V) squirrel cage moves 1,000 cubic feet per minute.
Plants don’t complain if you give them 32C air; your office occupants might find that uncomfortable. They might also object to having to work the night shift, when the outside air is cooler. Out with the old and in with the new! But don’t neglect to pass the old air through activated charcoal, lest your neighbors get wind of what you’re up to and want to lock you up with a bunch of climate deniers and other users of unapproved intoxicants.
Just the facts mann.
Only the facts
Nothing but the facts man.
Some facts are a Skunk heads dream.
Here’s a funny poster to go with that:
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y254/RogerKni/Politics%20%20Finance/skepticaleagle_zps9d625f0b.jpeg
1. How could we falsify that?
2. Carl Sagan gave it a try though!
How much oxygen do cars produce compared to marijuana?
I’d rather have the beer, if it’s all the same to you.
So prohibition is expensive in so many ways. Who knew?
DirkH says:
March 17, 2014 at 1:47 pm
…Nobody ever smoked himself to a Nobel price…
That may be true. But some one LSD’d his way there. The discoverer of PCR in genetics. Whose name escapes me at the moment.
MJ users are time bombs when behind the steering wheel.
Funny that. A study was done and came to the conclusion that drivers on pot were safer than those on alcohol.
http://healthland.time.com/2011/12/02/why-medical-marijuana-laws-reduce-traffic-deaths/
And those switching to pot saved lives.
Regardless of its global warming or not connection or whether or not it makes you eat potato chips, Pot. a rather harmless drug, smells like baby poop after a skunk has sprayed it and ruins good brownies of their chocolate flavor. Yuck. I would rather clean outhouses.
Upstream, someone has read a book or two about human cellular molecular docking sites. We all have docking sites on our cell walls that are specific to specific molecules. Over time, humans have developed rather interesting docking sites to certain molecules. Guess which one in particular. The fact that it smells like acid farts doesn’t seem to have been a part of the genetic development.
DJHawkins……1985 called, they want their metal halides back! Lots of laughs duuuuuuude.
10 of these bulbs over two mothers and an extra 4 over clones gets you to the flowering room.
(****Verilux Instant Sun® Full Spectrum 15 Watt T-8 Lamp)
I don’t know what you are smoking, but 1000w MH over mothers and clones is overkill, a waste of money and unnecessary in today’s technology.
I like my MMJ, I don’t like stupid.
PhilJourdan….did you even notice Anthony Watts creating his own headline? That’s okay for him to say 80% out of Cali when it was written 80% out of 5 states?
The mother jones article states “grown”, where in that piece did they divvy out MMJ and MJ in their stats?
And, what of the 29 refrigerators comparison that I demolished?
Take your little mother’s helper (valium, in case you didn’t know) just because its FDA and govt approved, and understand the big picture.
@gaelansclark – so you are saying your are justifying your lying by saying others lie? That is the defense of your lies?
I can see what other parts of the brain are affected by dope.
Tommy E …. sorry for the confusion, I meant…..no grower would use that wattage per square foot.
I take it the buildings you are describing are not growing operations.
Can you tell me “how it is” again, in context?
An initial fracking job will generally use up to 3 million gallons of water, depending on the area, size, and characteristic of the target reservoir. That means up to 20 wells could be fracked each day in Cali if we didn’t have to compete against the homegrown pot heads….
Now green climate austerity is not so funny any longer dude 🙂 ….
re: Khwarizmi says March 17, 2014 at 1:24 pm
Cannabis–a life enriching therapeutic plant that was once the fabric of our lives (hence the word CANVAS)–was outlawed worldwide for the benefit of Du Pont..
Same story as CFCs.
Can it be asked – Are the potheads with their own ‘select’ myths out again? BTW, on the issue of CFCs and the ‘DuPont’s patent was about to expire‘ myth, see:
1) Discussion – http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/12/11/at-agu-nasa-says-cfc-reduction-is-not-shrinking-the-ozone-hole-yet/#comment-1498239
2) Discussion – http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/12/11/at-agu-nasa-says-cfc-reduction-is-not-shrinking-the-ozone-hole-yet/#comment-1498299
3) The R-12 patent: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/12/11/at-agu-nasa-says-cfc-reduction-is-not-shrinking-the-ozone-hole-yet/#comment-1499679
Publication date . . Jul 9, 1935
Filing date . . . . . Feb 24, 1931
Priority date . . . . Feb 24, 1931
Inventors . . . . . . . Henne Albert L, Midgley Jr Thomas, Reed Mcnary Robert
Original Assignee . . Gen Motors Corp
https://www.google.com/patents/US2007208
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
The ‘patent’ on R-12 had well expired by the time CFCs were banned.
.
i scrolled through the comments and didn’t see any about dr. robert brown’s article here a few months ago. frankly, big government is the enemy when it comes to climate change and prohibition. being skeptical of outrageous claims on the former is just as advisable as being skeptical of outrageous claims on the latter.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/08/22/how-global-warming-research-is-like-pot-research/
Then … (the governing bodies said) let there be LEGAL BHO (Butane Hash Oil) … MJ’s big (quick-acting, double-assured to ‘please’ and works *every* time it’s tried) intoxicating BIG brother:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/01/17/the-southern-california-colby-wildfire-and-climate-change/#comment-1539403
Quoting from the post linked: The ‘next’ devolutionary step? – Refinement into ‘Honey Oil’ also known as hash oil or Butane Hash Oil (‘BHO’ oddly enough). Take 30 to 40 ‘hits’ all day long with each as effective as the previous vs simple ‘weed’ tokes which fail to ‘reward’ after a bit. Meet the new republic; much like the old opium dens of China …
There are several vids accessible on the subject at that link as well.
.
WOW…Anthony Watts or Moderator………you don’t like being called out on changing the original article, do you?
Again, this is one of my favorite sites, I come to see the news here daily. I use the arguments laid out here constantly. Now I see that you are, for whatever reason, purposefully changing one of the first points of the article in question and you wont even own up to it.
Truly unbelievable. And you moderate out a comment made to someone regarding this factual change that you have made. For what reason do you insist on keeping “80% of all marijuana grown in the USA comes from Cali” when the article that you are referring to clearly indicates that 80% of all marijuana grown in the USA is from 5 states? Have you no shame?
REPLY: Honestly no idea what you are talking about regarding some “moderated comment”, where? As for the article it has been updated. – Anthony
“Don’t believe us; go read Junkie by Sam Burroughs; he’s the expert and he’ll tell you the same thing that I can tell you, namely that MJ , especially unexpected flashbacks a day later, switch off your 3D perception while driving from one moment to the next, and good luck if you’re in dense traffic. Happened to me, 30 years ago; and convinced me that a driving license and MJ are not friends so I stuck with the driving license.
MJ users are time bombs when behind the steering wheel.”
Damn Dirk that must have been some good shite you were smoking to turn off your 3D a day later!
: )
One of the stories out of the Pacific NW 20 years ago is that the push to shut down logging there was more due to the desire to grow pot in the national forests than anything else. The spotted owls were just the excuse. Shut down the loggers, and there are far, far fewer people blundering on a growing area. Cheers –
It is true that the combination of illegal growing for the black market and quasi legal growing for medical use is environmentally destructive. All the more reason to bring it all into the light of day and make it legal. There could be organic or low impact farms in the Sacramento Valley along side I-80.
This is the most ridiculous report ive ever seen
[Reply: we would love to hear your reasons. ~mod.]
_JIm,
” CFCs and the ‘DuPont’s patent was about to expire‘ myth, see:”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
why don’t you and/or Mooloo go and rewrite the history of the CFC ban at wikipedia to make it concordant with your corporate view:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chlorofluorocarbon#Regulation_and_DuPont
.
As discussed earlier–but you seem to have a conveniently short memory (see U.S., patent 6630507 to fix that problem)– the DuPont patent was for the process of manufacture, not the molecule.
So the expiry date on the patent for R12 is irrelevant, as you already knew.
DuPont’s patent on Nylon was threatened by a resurgent hemp industry, so the simians in the fascist government of the United Snakes of Captivity made part of nature illegal for DuPont and Hearst.
http://www.jackherer.com/thebook/chapter-three/
I didn’t make that story up, as you imply.
Don’t worry about the CO2…. when the MJ is burned it makes enough “aerosols” to make things cool man…..
Kary Mullis. There’s also a certain Watson . . .
Suppose that you drink a lot of coffee because…you like coffee. While you know that it does contain the addicitive psycho-active substance caffeine, you also know that consumption of the drug is only associated with significant health benefits and no significant risks. You would like to flaunt your addiction proudly, like alcoholics can and sometimes do (especially when they “quaff”). But coffee is illegal for some irrational reason (nothing to do with science or democracy or anything like that), and it therefore costs around $10 on the black market for enough beans to make just one decent cup.
So you decide to grow some coffee beans in the privacy of your own home under artificial lighting for your personal use only, because you want some dignity (like you get when you buy alcohol or tobacco), and because you want a higher percentage of your hard-earned wages to spend in the real economy (perhaps on those deadly but legal luxuries such as alcohol or tobacco).
But on the very day when your crop of beans has finished drying after months of invested effort, just when they are ready to be roasted and ground and made into espresso and tasted, 3 carloads of police arrive and turn your home and your life upside-down, seizing all your dried coffee beans, every scrap of plant material, and all your lighting and pumps.
They then parade you in front of your neighbors in handcuffs before driving you to the local station to be interrogated and charged.
That’s what happened to me on November 4, 2012.
> “Where did you learn how to grow coffee?”
>> “Well, when I was 5 years old, my mother took me outside and showed me how to press a seed into the dirt. Didn’t anyone ever show you that trick, constable?”
I still have the recording of my interview.
I was eventually fined $200 for cultivating and possessing 1.8kg of dried “coffee beans.”
And that, coincidentally, is about the same price I paid for the ~750KwH of electricity that was required to grow them.
Oh, man, now THAT is funny. I wonder how the greens in Colorado and Washington are reacting to this piece!
So how CO2 is it for Cocaine production then
Put a few ethically aware Yuppy ,Celebrity ,Ghetto Crack head noses out of joint
philjourdan
1) gaelansclark’s figures are approximately correct.
2) RGB referred also to “medical cannabis”, but you didn’t subject RGB to the accusation of “liar”
3) Cannabis was outlawed for the benefit of DuPont & Hearst, to the detriment of humanity.
Show some scientific studies that demonstrate the brain damage that you claim you can just “see” with your magical x-ray eyes.
What – you can’t find a single legitimate study?
What’s that you say…that the U.S. government owns a patent of cannabinoids for protecting the brain?
You say that research demonstrates that cannabinoids stimulate neurogenensis?
Of course you didn’t say those things, because you aren’t interested in the truth.
I am disappointed in Mother Jones for this article and in people who don’t question it. The numbers are exaggerated and some of the references are suspect. It is true that growing marijuana indoors uses a fair amount of energy, but growing it outdoors doesn’t. The legalization of marijuana will help eliminate high energy growing practices and provide a crop that can be taxed, and that has medical and recreational purposes. There is also the issue of considering the amount of resources used for other agricultural crops; why should this be more heavily scrutinized. This is stupid.
Far out, man!
Did someone ask for Mann? Dave’s not here.
For the numpties objecting to the title, a marijuana grow is a location where marijuana is grown. It’s a slang noun, commonly known. Except to numpties.
#1 – Show me where I was contesting his figures.
#2 – The article talks about MJ,not MMJ. While they are the same substance, there is a lot less of the latter than the former. And the issue is NOT the same. As you see from his comments, he apparently uses it like everyone else drinks beer. It is not medicinal, so drop the charade.
#3 – I do not care why it was outlawed. Non Sequitur.
There is no such thing as recreational use. You are all self medicating. Recreational Use is Taxed at a higher Rate. You can’t grow your own in Co or WA. So POT is “legal” (are you sure?) in those states as long as the Government is the DEALER? In California POT has been medically legal since 1996. Basically it works like this. You smoke pot. It brings you some type of alleviation. Be it stress relief, increased hunger, loss of nausea, or whatever. To” just get stoned” is just a general “catch all” term for multiple things, and means so much more. POT is not cheap. $460.00 per oz in the CA. Clubs and you can’t buy more than 1 ounce. Try telling a cigarette smoker that they can only by 5 packs at a time. RIDICULOUS Another thing. Here in California it might be legal. But the city’s and town have passed local ordinances prohibiting marijuana outdoor growing. The reason is the smell and the attraction of thieves. Well Thieves are being eliminated by neighborhood cameras springing up to catch the residential burglars, but if you were to raise the fence line to 7 feet. It is quite difficult for a 5’6″ person to climb over a 7 foot fence. Make Smartcars not drive when the driver is determined to be intoxicated. Give them a warm “time out”, Rename the local court building in your town to a neutral corporate paying sponsor. Family named buildings establish a “good old boy” rank structure dictated by the progressive movement communists in order to obtain a control based on name not merit. Renaming the building takes that power away.