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
Mark The RV Guy
April 16th, 2011
9:45 am
The fact that it is illegal is what fuels the war in Mexico. Smuggling weed accounts for 70% of revenue to drug gangs in Mexico. This outdated position by the US Government has cost 10s of thousands of lives in Mexico. There is not a single legitimate reason for weed to be illegal. Hey, alcohol is legal, however it is socially destructive, mentally and physically harmful to those who use it and the for those who have to live with addicts. No one comes home on Friday night, gets high and beats his wife and kids.
Biff Clinton
April 16th, 2011
9:47 am
Marijuana Prohibition is the most destructive and dysfunctional social policy in America since Slavery. Legalize Marijuana and stop playing this stupid outdated reefer madness game
Lisa Pound
April 16th, 2011
9:49 am
I wish thousands of Marijuana users would plant seeds all over the State Capitol grounds this spring and show those bozo’s in the State house that Marijuana is NEVER going away. EVER.
Gabe Williams
April 16th, 2011
9:52 am
All Marijuana Prohibition does is fuel the NAZI Police State here in America. Legalize it.
tom turtle
April 16th, 2011
11:08 am
With pot possession arrests increasing nationwide, I prefer smoking the marijuana mimic Krystal koat, which looks exactly pot, smokes like pot, gets good dro buzz like pot, and never test fail a drug test. http://www.krystalkoat.com
Earth Friendly
April 16th, 2011
11:38 am
@ Oh Yeah…. AMEN to your comment! Hemp is the “greener” choice in fact!
robert
April 16th, 2011
3:01 pm
The “facts” presented here are absurdly wrong. Ask an engineer. One refrigerator uses about 850 watts. A hundred refrigerators would use about 85,000 watts. Think 850 incandescent 100 watt bulbs. The wate heat would burn the building down.
rick day
April 16th, 2011
3:56 pm
malaka
April 15th, 2011
2:47 pm
drug dealers and illegal drug users should be exterminated.
malaka, to be honest I agree: re-legalize drugs and watch while illegal drug use and illegal drug sales are exterminated!
silly monkey. you had the key the whole time
Brilliant!
Denise Tasa
April 16th, 2011
4:06 pm
Are they counting the power consumption that included growing hemp for weaving cord, making paper making oil in all the statistics?
Texas
April 16th, 2011
4:40 pm
The study pulls data from the very top end of high-tech gardens, with items such as air exchanges, humidity control, and CO2 injection. I would guess that about 5-10% of indoor growers use those methods, and the rest just use a simple grow light and circulating fan. I saw a garden in CA that was a basic 4×4 setup, with a 250W MH bulb, and a small fan for air circulation. It produced 4 nice plants and a few ounces each harvest. A 250W bulb is just 3-4 times normal bulbs. In the first month of growth, the lights were on 24hrs day. The last 2 months, 12hrs a day. That brings down the usage to an avg of 16hrs a day. You get about 30-40 joints from an ounce, meaning that garden yielded about 100-120 joints over 3 months at 250W a day. I guess that could be fairly close to 1 joint a day. So the math could match up depending on your setup. Like everything, the bigger scale will yield bigger for lower avg inputs. This means that big gardens can really get good economies of scale, compared to small closet grows.