Marijuana production uses 1 percent of all U.S. electricity
Unlike the smokable plant, marijuana production ain’t green.
The driver of this van has no idea he's killing baby polar bears.
Marijuana has a Godzilla-sized carbon footprint, with indoor production consuming one percent of all electricity produced in the United States, according to a study.
The resulting carbon dioxide emissions from all those power plants is equivalent to operating 3 million badly painted Volkswagen Microbuses (see photo).
Here’s some more interesting facts:
* Energy costs account for 25 percent of marijuana wholesale costs.
* The energy required to produce one joint is equal to running a 100-watt light bulb for 17 hours.
* A four-by-four-foot lighted “production module” uses the same energy as 30 refrigerators.
Of course, after reading all that, you’re probably wondering how much in energy costs the U.S. could save if we just let people grow marijuana outdoors.
The answer? $5 billion, or 2.5 million pounds of weed.
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115 comments Add your comment
Jeff
April 15th, 2011
10:33 am
I wonder if the idiot author of this article realizes that he just libeled the owner of that VW bus.
Mary Jane
April 15th, 2011
10:35 am
This is an example of one of those articles that you read on the internet that are not true.
Just because you read it on line does not mean its true or even near the truth, such as this article.
antonio
April 15th, 2011
10:44 am
Another way to reduce the US’s energy dependence….. Make pot legal so it can be grown outdoors with natural light!!!
Paul Lagoon
April 15th, 2011
10:55 am
They fail to mention the amount of oxygen each plant can produce in its life cycle. I don’t know the exact number, but wouldn’t that make up for some, if not all, of the greenhouse gasses produced. This story is nothing but anti-cannabis propaganda.
Paul Lagoon
April 15th, 2011
11:01 am
“The driver of this van has no idea he’s killing baby polar bears.”
Well, so are you Einstein. Every time you turn on your computer to write one of your biased articles, you are consuming power. Therefor, you too are killing baby polar bears. Is your computer returning oxygen to the air?
Shannon, M.Div.
April 15th, 2011
11:02 am
NotTrue, oldsmoker, Cheech, and shaggy: FYI, “That’s not true!” is not a proper rebuttal. If you click on the associated link in the text, you can read the study–including an excellent graph that breaks down the component parts of marijuana production. If you’d like to rebut what you read there, I’m sure we’d all like to read it. On the other hand, if you want to just yell “No! Nonononononono!” then I (and probably other readers) will assume that you are partaking of the product in question.
This has been a message from your semi-friendly neighborhood critical thinking advocate.
dirtyhippy
April 15th, 2011
11:04 am
I happen to like the paint job on the VW.
At least the electricity is going to good use…unlike all the electricity it takes to power your stupid iphone.
Foghornleghorn
April 15th, 2011
11:07 am
The funny thing is that the impacts in the argument they are trying to make are non unique. Why only focus on 1%. It is like they are trying to attribute high energy cost to pot heads. Here is an idea. How about mass media outlets stop publishing pointless stories and articles. If you think about the loss of production that occurs from all the people (myself included) who stop working to read this stuff, and then you think about all the energy that is spent from people running their computers and TVs to read or view these stories. To sum it all up, get rid of pointless media and save more money.
Not Stoned
April 15th, 2011
11:12 am
Legalize it, tax the hell out of it (remember the defecit?), say goodbye to the crime and $ spent policing it, and reduce the carbon foot print by growing it outside. I don’t smoke. Why is this not happening?
Will
April 15th, 2011
11:13 am
I don’t need to read the study to know the authors twisted data to achieve their objective. All pot is not the same, not does it all cost the same on the street. Blanket assumptions such as the ones above are not worthy of public consideration.