Yes, but they didn’t inhale the electricity…
From globalwarming.org
Pot growers inhale 1% of U.S. electricity, exhale GHGs of 3Million cars — study
Colin Sullivan, E&E reporter
Indoor marijuana cultivation consumes enough electricity to power 2 million average-sized U.S. homes, which corresponds to about 1 percent of national power consumption, according to a study by a staff scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
Researcher Evan Mills’ study notes that cannabis production has largely shifted indoors, especially in California, where medical marijuana growers use high-intensity lights usually reserved for operating rooms that are 500 times more powerful that a standard reading lamp.
Click here to read Mills’ study:
ENERGY UP IN SMOKE
THE CARBON FOOTPRINT OF INDOOR CANNABIS PRODUCTION
In California, the top-producing state, indoor cultivation is responsible for about 3% of all electricity use or 8% of household use, somewhat higher than estimates previously made for British Columbia. This corresponds to the electricity use of 1 million average California homes, greenhouse-gas emissions equal to those from 1 million average cars, and energy expenditures of $3 billion per year. Due to higher electricity prices and cleaner fuels used to make electricity, California incurs 70% of national energy costs but contributes only 20% of national CO2 emissions from indoor Cannabis cultivation.
But today, Moonbeam Governor Brown plans to sign a renewable energy mandate sure to bring on supply reliability problems.
Maybe when the potheads start complaining they can’t produce enough “medical marijuana” to satisfying the needs of the “afflicted” in California, “Moonbeam” might realize what terrible damage he’s done to the state’s number one cash crop.
With unreliable electricity for growlights, looks like the pot rescue of California’s economy is up in smoke.
Time to leave California, it’s just gotten too freaking weird here.
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Frito Lay announced that their sales of snack foods in CA has exceeded all forecasts. Am also told that hemp makes good ropes.
@DJ
“According to numbers I ran, derived from numbers I got off the internet (irrefutable, no doubt), the energy use of these operations in question represents over 102Million Kwh of electricity DAILY…and that doesn’t include independent electrical generators not on the grid.
I’m finding that really hard to believe.”
Why would it be hard to believe?
It is no different then from growing tomatoes that you want to harvest every month and for that you need to run different types of high powered lamps 24/7, plus you need to run different types of fans and irrigation pumps, et cetera, for 24/7. During summer you spend extra on cooling, during winter on heating. To start an early bloom, that’ll actually give a high yield, you need lots and lots of lumens for 24/7 in a controlled environment, which is so easy these days that even junior high school dropout a plenty can do it in their own closets en masse. Apparently, it is so easy that people can start smoking their own home grown in a month, which is probably why my country is considered to be self sufficient these days and that happened in the last ten years (which means it is more common than home wine making and stronger stuff .)
Spain went down this road and in the process destroyed their economy. We just don’t have the technology yet.
Windmills and electric cars were thrown on the trash heap ninety years ago in this country for a reason.
Then there is this problem they have swept under the rug:
Rare earth metals are key to global efforts to switch to cleaner energy — from batteries in hybrid cars to magnets in wind turbines. Mining and processing the metals causes environmental damage that China, the biggest producer, is no longer willing to bear.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-01-05/china-rare-earths-leave-toxic-trail-to-toyota-prius-vestas-wind-turbines.html
So, if this study is right, smoking dope kills more Poley Bears than driving a SUV?!?
I hear the sound of Hippy heads exploding……..
Let them use CFL’s.
Wijnand says:
April 12, 2011 at 11:43 am
“@pk 11:00am
Sorry pk but what a load of crap!
You are saying growing and using pot is a crime because some stupid people used it while opetating heavy machinery???
Ok, lets illegalize sleep-aids, hay fever medicine and alcohol too then!”
Wihnand; Marijuana is known to cause flashbacks. They can surprise you days after consumption, out of the blue, and suddenly your 3D perception is gone; the world is flat and you’re in your car doing whatever speed on a highway.
Been there, done that; long time ago; didn’t harm anyone; stopped doing Marijuana.
“It’s Dave, open the gd door, man”.
“Dave who man”.
Dave from the old Cheech and Chong skit couldn’t get his pal to open the door but when Dave here says “So even with the electricity for indoor lights to grow it I’m sure that is more than offset by the consumers of the product using less transporation fuel”; he has opened a door to the logical workings of his mind where prudence might better have kept that particular door locked up tight.
DirkH says:
April 12, 2011 at 12:17 pm
“the world is flat and you’re in your car doing whatever speed on a highway.”
Thinking about it, this could explain why so many left-leaning people propose more public transportation; they’re just scared by the idea of what would happen if they drove a car themselves.
larry:
the incident with the woeman and the forklift happened right in front of me at my job (which slick willie managed to shut down). it was one of those deals where another half inch would hava crushed her hips.
the railroad incident was at GUNPOW on the conrail railroad (i believe that you can look it up in google.) it pushed the DOT into placing regulatons where by traincrews and dispatchers have to pass urine tests after accidents and on an irregular basis.
the incident with the tanker occoured many years ago at the intersection of the 405 and 5 freeways south of los angeles and should be in the california highway patrol records. i believe that there were people killed in that incident.
C
I have an endless dissertation on this subject, but it always concludes with the same conclusion . . . . and that is . . . . “and that is why Congress and the Founding Fathers decided that Prohibitions should be Prohibited” . . .
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eighteenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution
“The eighteenth article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty-first_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution
It should and could be grown outdoors . . . .
http://azhemp.org/Archive/Package/Uses/uses.html
I have seen firsthand the freakish lighting used in pot growing. The night sky had a Frankenstein Castle look to it as 10,000 watts of power made a beacon every one in the city could see. You see, they initially put visquine over the structure, intending to let the sun in during the daytime. Oops.
Needless to say, the resulting display was truly jaw-dropping.
one of the things that the potheads don’t know or realize (aside from the fact that they all KNOW that they can kick the habit any time they want) is that when they are on the weed they are stupid.
they don’t realize it but every body else in civilization knows it including cops, bosses, straights, judges, coworkers…….
you guys that use, don’t realize just how stupid you come off in industrial situations. the problem is that when you do something dumb you can get the guy beside you killed.
potheads should herd sheep. at least then the dogs can keep things going.
C
Duncan says:
April 12, 2011 at 11:46 am
At a price/ounce exceeding that of gold, the electric bill is the furthest thing from thier minds. The Compassionate Use Law in Calif. is what opened the door for the Uncrupulous to move in, and they did just that. Like locusts, when they are done, they leave the mess and move on.
pk says:
April 12, 2011 at 12:43 pm
“one of the things that the potheads don’t know or realize (aside from the fact that they all KNOW that they can kick the habit any time they want) is that when they are on the weed they are stupid. ”
pk, kicking the dope habit *IS* easy. No physical or psychological withdrawal symptoms at all. You just stop it. Completely different to nicotine. Can’t compare to hard drugs as i’ve used none.
One of the reasons they grow pot indoors is that they can control growing conditions and prevent pollination of the female plants.
Marijuana is an intoxicant just like alcohol and other drugs. Nothing that alters one’s perception of reality is good for you. The crying shame is that it would appear that we learned nothing from the failed experiment known as Prohibition. It is pretty well established that a significant proportion of the population smokes pot despite it being illegal. The same was true of alcohol consumption during Prohibition. Prohibition results in violence, lawlessness and corruption. Personally I don’t believe many more would use pot if it were legal than use it now…we would simply save billions of dollars…not to mention all that expensive renewable California electricity.
You’re welcome to come to Idaho Anthony. Although our R.I.N.O.s can be just as frustrating as California’s maleducated Greens.
Mind you, I’m not admitting to anything here, but optimum growing conditions preclude that nasty habit the Sun has of slipping behind the Earth after 9-15 hours.
Moreover (and without reading all of the other comments), I can hardly see how the equivalent electricity use of 1% of all households in the US translates to 1% of ALL electricity use. Indeed, according to the very chart shown here earlier this week, residential use is only 4.65/12.08 (38.5%).
Err, so does pot growing count as industrial, residential, or commercial?
@Dale Rainwater. Dave
A long time ago I saw a piece on the tube about evidence that an entire culture that used hemp for so many purposes that just about the entire culture was built upon it . . . and as the violent, lawless and corrupted moved in to take over . . .it was hypothesized . . . they used the destruction crop as the “Achilles heel” to decimate the entire civilization/culture . . . .
Never forgot it, reminded me of the American Native and the Buffalo . . . .
Your temperature and humidity monitor feature, and this article on the same day? Hmmm.
@Laurie Bowen
Good analogy. So as not to veer too far O/T it should be pointed out that cops use residential electricity use to detect indoor marijuana cultivation. About 15 years ago the cops busted an indoor pot farm in my quiet neighborhood. The household was burning through 5 times as much electricity month after month than a typical 1,700 sqft home.
The real societal problem is drug prohibition. If the US government made tobacco illegal tomorrow what do you think would happen? There would indoor tobacco farms under grow lights popping up all over the place. A huge black market for tobacco would be created along with all the associated crime, smuggling and violence. It would further burden our law enforcement, judicial and corrections resources. Tobacco use is foolish and harmful…but it remains an individual’s choice.
California has the geographic size, population and economy of a reasonably sized country. I wish Prop 19 had passed as it would have served as an excellent experimental case. We could see what would really happen if marijuana were legalized. We could objectively measure the impact. Until this is done, everything argument on both sides of the issue is pure conjecture.
Growing marijuana indoors means that the growers can not only control its mating habits (take THAT, Bolivia!) but also give it 1300 ppm of carbon dioxide. Pot LOVES CO2!
As do all plants, of course.
Rational Debate said @ur momisugly April 12, 2011 at 11:58 am
“Now, I don’t know how much marijuana helps, but I think it is pretty clear that there are a large number of people with legitimate problems that it does help, as much or more than typical pain meds or in conjunction with them when they are insufficient…”
As it happens, I suffer from chronic pain (osteoarthritis) and find that marijuana is far more beneficial than opiates, synthetic or otherwise. When used for such, as distinct from smoking to get as stoned as possible, it’s far less impairing of my judgment than, for example, oxycodone, or tramadol. It doesn’t constipate, or impair appetite and it’s far less addictive.
That said, most of what’s grown these days is skank, a potent hybrid with a far higher THC content than the old open-pollinated varieties. While THC is said to be “the active ingredient”, skank is far less effective for pain control and you are far more likely to imbibe an impairing dose.
“All marijuana’s the same, ain’t they?
That’s the mistake
Most people make!
No stems, no seeds that you don’t need
Acapulco Gold is bad ass weed.”
DirkH says:
April 12, 2011 at 12:27 pm
DirkH says:
April 12, 2011 at 12:17 pm
Thinking about it, this could explain why so many left-leaning people propose more public transportation; they’re just scared by the idea of what would happen if they drove a car themselves.
—————-
Dirk,
It’s why they don’t like guns either.
You people are so last week, Nitrogen is the new Carbon!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-13025304
Incorrect. Alcohol in moderate amounts is very healthy. Over consumption of alcohol is bad for you, not consumption. But the same is true of almost everything. Too much caffeine is bad for you, but a little is good for you. Too much salt is bad for you, but a little is good for you. Too much water is bad for you, but a little is good for you. Beer and wine have many health benefits. My grandmother drinks a beer every day to help her kidneys. Wine helps lower cholesterol. And I could go on.