US marijuana growers consume 1% of nation's electricity

[kristopher]

How Marijuana Prohibition Drives Up Energy Costs And Warms The Planet
BY NICOLE FLATOW ON DECEMBER 6, 2013 AT 1:21 PM



U.S. marijuana growers have increasingly brought their farms indoors, in large part to remain hidden from law enforcement. But the industry comes at a significant carbon cost. A 2011 study by researchers at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory found that the marijuana industry is responsible for 1 percent of U.S. electricity use, primarily because of resources associated with indoor cultivation and storage. In California, indoor cultivation accounts for 3 percent of the state’s energy use.

That finding was before two states legalized recreational marijuana, in addition to several more medical marijuana states. Now, Colorado growers with utility bills of $20,000 to $100,000 per month are warning that indoor growth may not be sustainable.

“Energy consumption in this business is pretty astronomical,” marijuana business owner John Kocer told CBS Denver. “As this industry expands at its current pace I do believe that we will be a tax on the energy grid: something has to change.”

Indoor marijuana cultivation requires indoor grow lights, in addition to temperature control and ventillation. Overall...

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/12/06/3031951/marijuana-prohibition-growing-carbon-cost/

[NoOneMan]

1. Thats quite sad

[truedelphi]

13. And it is probably not true. The author of this piece is connected

(or was connected) to right wing think tank ACS. IN 2010 she was the Communications Director.

Here is what ACS is about:

http://www.acslaw.org/about

I imagine that the "think tank" gets quite a bit of funding from the Big Pharma interests.

[kristopher]

16. Pretty sure it is true, go to the links in post 6 for the unfiltered data

The article is from Think Progress so I'd suggest you might be trying a bit too hard to find an agenda.

[broiles]

19. I agree it's BS.

[kristopher]

22. So straightforward energy accounting in a peer reviewed journal is BS?

Perhaps you could be specific about what measurements the author of the study got wrong.

[truedelphi]

24. okay here are two thoughts I have about this study -

One: It purports to define the amount of energy used by people that are illegally growing marijuana. Now when you think about it, how can anyone determine that amount? Most people who grow indoors do it due to the fact that they are not in compliance with the law and so they aren't about to hang a banner over their home stating "Hey There! The people who live here are using a lot of energy to grow marijuana indoors." So where exactly does the author of this study get their statistics? And how can those stats be reliable?

In fact, it is more and more the case that people growing indoors have gone to the trouble of going solar, not only for the environmental benefits, but also because the local utilities flag the consumer who uses too much energy. So using solar or wind is a two-fer: it helps the environment, and it also helps avoid detection by utilities who rat the consumer out to the DEA.

Two: They use the statement that the amount of energy used by indoor marijuana growers is more than that used by the Big Pharma industry in all of the USDA. But you know something - that is a very misleading statement. Currently most of the actual production and manufacture of Big Pharma products occurs south of the border or in third world nations. So that is a questionable and misleading remark to make in such a paper.

[kristopher]

27. Obviously you can't be bothered to read the study I pointed you to.

I told you the first time you asked that you should go to the first link in post 6 and read the ORIGINAL study.

Then you wouldn't be fumbling around with a lot of invalid assumptions that are clearly addressed.

There seems to be a bizarre unwillingness to consult the original, peer reviewed study that is the source of the data referred to in the Think Progress article.

[MindMover]

29. Even if it is true ... the combined usage of pharms are much greater than 1% ....

[bananas]

32. I wonder if she's related to Ira Flatow of NPR's Science Friday?

There seems to be a family resemblance:



Photos from https://twitter.com/NicFlatow and http://iraflatow.com/IraFlatow/Home.html

[bananas]

33. Hmm, she re-tweeted one of his recent tweets

https://twitter.com/iraflatow/status/407575677085696000

iraflatow ‏@iraflatow

The preview is out! Ira on The Big Bang Theory Thursday,Dec 5 interviews Sheldon,Leonard. @scifri @tbbtsite http://bit.ly/1c7dQ6u

(embedded video)

4 Retweets
Kim ‏ @kim2kim1
Jennifer Sniegowski ‏ @jasniegowski
Nicole Flatow ‏ @NicFlatow
Arlen Kundert ‏ @ArlenKundert

6 Favorites
Deanna ‏ @deannalaynne
Cherie Despres ‏ @QueenOfSqurrls
Esther Y. Lee ‏ @estherindc
Nikka Guz ‏ @nikka_guz
steve crandall ‏ @tingilinde
Arlen Kundert ‏ @ArlenKundert

10:23 AM - 2 Dec 2013

[kristopher]

34. ACS isn't a Rightwing think tank. It's a progressive law society.

American Constitution Society
The American Constitution Society for Law and Policy is a progressive version of the Federalist Society. It is a network of lawyers, law students, scholars, judges, and policymakers. [1]
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/American_Constitution_Society



American Constitution Society

The American Constitution Society is a left-wing legal activist group working to change our nation's laws and approaches towards law enforcement. One of its areas of focus is constitutional interpretation and change.
ACS is funded by the big players in left-wing political finance, including members of the billionaires' club, the Democracy Alliance. Reliably liberal benefactors of ACS include George Soros's Open Society Institute ($2,201,500 since 2002), Ford Foundation ($600,000 since 2003) and the Sandler Family Supporting Foundation ($200,000 in 2003).[5]
http://keywiki.org/index.php/George_Soros_-_Affiliations#American_Constitution_Society

You might reread the "about" page you posted a link to. It has a distinctly un-conservative slant, IMO.

But it isn't a waste, I'd never heard of them before so thanks for pointing them out.

[bananas]

35. Laurence Tribe was a founder and was on the board of advisors

Sourcewatch lists him as on the board of advisors in 2008,
but the current website doesn't list him anymore: http://www.acslaw.org/about/leadership

Wikipedia lists him as one of the founders:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurence_Tribe

Tribe is noted for his extensive support of liberal legal causes. He is one of the co-founders of the liberal American Constitution Society, the law and policy organization formed to counter the conservative Federalist Society, and is one of a number of scholars at Harvard Law School who have expressed their support for animal rights.[13] Tribe argued one case for Al Gore during the disputed 2000 U.S. presidential election.

Tribe actively supported the Barack Obama presidential campaign, and described Obama as "the best student I ever had,"[1] a sentiment previously reserved for Kathleen Sullivan.[14]

Alongside Harvard's Cass Sunstein, Tribe served as a judicial adviser to the Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign.[15] In February 2010, he was named "Senior Counselor for Access to Justice" in the Department of Justice.[5][16] He resigned eight months later, citing health reasons.[17]

[NYC_SKP]

2. In California, indoor cultivation is responsible for about 3% of all electric. Where's the cite?

I didn't see a hard number for that, or citation, the citation in that paragraph seems to support the BC claims.

What year? What was the total electric demand, overall statewide, what was the demand for electricity from grow operations.

I didn't see it, I'm sure it's there, and TIA.

[kristopher]

3. Did you follow the link?

The article links to the study author's website, which gives access to the original paper in the journal Energy Policy. Without digging too deeply it looks like the California number was calculated by the author.
Take a look:
http://evan-mills.com/energy-associates/Indoor_files/cannabis-carbon-footprint.pdf

ETA: Author's website for the paper http://evan-mills.com/energy-associates/Indoor.html

[NYC_SKP]

4. Yes I did. I only see a link to BC data. I don't expect you to give me the numbers.

I think you'll just continue to tell me where to go find the numbers myself.

You posted it, though and my questions are simple.

What year?

What is the total state electric demand for that year?

What is the claimed demand for the pot growing sector?

What source or sources?

If you don't have it, that's fine.

If this was my OP, I'd have had those numbers handy going into it.

[kristopher]

5. Dude, I'm not going to spend an hour studying the methodology for you

I like you and all of that, but I gave you a link to the original paper. If you want to know the details of how he obtained his results please read it carefully and I'm sure you'll not be disappointed; it's peer reviewed.
That's the way it works when original research is involved. HE is the reference.

The paper is from 2012 so the data is probably at least from 2011.

[NYC_SKP]

7. The data is from 2011, that much was clear. The 3% conclusion isn't there. I don't see it.

And it doesn't feel right to me intuitively given the electrons that go to industry, commercial, infrastructure, line losses, and the rest.

Three percent of ALL electricity consumption. Really? Do you even believe that?

[kristopher]

8. You are looking at the summary, not the paper.

Follow the link I gave you.

Please.

[truedelphi]

12. In California, at least in my County, most people are growing outdoors.

I don't feel like wading through an entire piece on this, but it sounds to me very much like a hit piece.

Any time the environment is mentioned in conventional newspapers, there is almost always a reference to how the pot growers are polluting the environment. And not a word is said about the damn vineyards. But the vintners have a total slash and burn and destructive way of ending species after species of animals. For whatever reason (probably due to how much marijuana is now threatening to the Bug Phamra interests, the media has a mantra which is: It's always POT IS VERY VERY BAD; VINEYARdS VERY VERY GOOD.

Anyway regardless of all this, what if the piece is right and every single marijuana grower on the planet is doing it inside with commercial electricity. Then it would be obvious to do the sensible thing and to friggin' make it legal to grow it outdoors.

[kristopher]

15. It is straight analysis.

But the main takeaway message I see from the data is that prohibition and the restrictions placed by states on MM are what drives the high energy consumption. They discuss the facts that the energy use is higher than other indoor agricultural activities in the US and that Belgium uses 99% less energy by using greenhouses.

Perhaps a good read would give you some sound arguments supporting the end of prohibition; something I've been waiting on for more than 40 years.

[kristopher]

6. Just to make sure you see it

There are two pdf's. You want the one I gave a link for. Somewhere on the path to getting that a summary popped up that doesn't have the method.

Energy Policy 46 (2012) 58–67
Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect
Energy Policy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/enpol
The carbon footprint of indoor Cannabis production
Evan Mills
Energy Associates, Box 1688, Mendocino, CA 95460, United States

Pg 59

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 (4 􏰀 4 􏰀 8 ft) chamber). Each module yields approximately 0.5kg (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.
To estimate national electricity use, these normalized values are applied to the lower end of the range of the aforementioned estimated production (10,000 t per year), with one-third of the activity takes place under indoor conditions. This indicates electricity use of about 20 TW/h/year nationally (including off- grid production). This is equivalent to that of 2 million average U.S. homes, corresponding to approximately 1% of national electricity consumption — or the output of 7 large electric power plants (Koomey et al., 2010). This energy, plus associated fuel uses (discussed below), is valued at $6 billion annually, with asso- ciated emissions of 15 million metric ton of CO2 — equivalent to that of 3 million average American cars (Fig. 1 and Tables 1–3.)
Fuel is used for several purposes, in addition to electricity. The carbon dioxide injected into grow rooms to increase yields is produced industrially (Overcash et al., 2007) or by burning propane or natural gas within the grow room contributes about 1–2% to the carbon footprint and represents a yearly U.S. expenditure of $0.1 billion. Vehicle use associated with production and distribution contributes about 15% of total emissions, and represents a yearly expenditure of $1 billion. Off-grid diesel- and gasoline-fueled electric generators have per-kilowatt-hour emissions burdens that are 3- and 4-times those of average grid electricity in California. It requires 70 gallon of diesel fuel to produce one indoor Cannabis plant (or the equivalent yield per unit area), or 140 gallon with smaller, less-efficient gasoline generators.
In California, the top-producing state, indoor cultivation is responsible for about 3% of all electricity use, or 9% of household use.2 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 50% of national energy costs but contributes only 25% of national CO2 emissions from indoor Cannabis cultivation.
From the perspective of individual consumers, a single Cannabis cigarette represents 1.5 kg (3 pounds) of CO2 emissions, an amount equal to driving a 44 mpg hybrid car 22 mile or running a 100-watt light bulb for 25 h, assuming average U.S. electricity emissions. The electricity requirement for one single production module equals that of an average U.S. home and twice that of an average California home. The added electricity use is equivalent to running about 30 refrigerators.
2 This is somewhat higher than estimates previously made for British Columbia, specifically, 2% of total Provincial electricity use or 6% of residential use (Garis, 2008; Bellett, 2010).

[kristopher]

23. Buehler.......Buehler.......Buehler.....

[Electric Monk]

9. So grow it where electricity is cheaper, like Vancouver or Winnipeg.

http://www.gov.mb.ca/ctt/invest/busfacts/utilities/compare.html

Half the cost of growing it in California, for the electricity anyways.

[kristopher]

11. Prohibition is the problem

From the author's original paper, first link, post #3 above:

...this level of energy use is high in comparision to that used for other indoor cultivation practices, primarily owing to the lack of daylighting. For comparison, the energy intensity of Belgian greenhouses is estimated at approximately 1000 MJ/m2 (De Cock and Van Lierde, No date), or about 1% that estimated here for indoor Cannabis production.

The inefficiency noted is primarily a result of prohibition, but it is actually in line with waste across the US electric sector.

US Wastes 61–86% Of Its Energy
by Barry Fischer, Opower’s head writer

An updated analysis published last month by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory suggests that the USA is just 39% energy efficient.

Put another way, more than half (i.e. 61%) of the energy that flows through our economy is ultimately wasted.

?fit=570%2C1200


The predominance of inefficiency is conveyed by the energy-flow diagram below: it shows the country’s energy fuel inputs (e.g. coal, natural gas) on the left side, and end-use energy consumption (e.g. residential, industrial, transportation) on the right side.

Of the 95.1 quadrillion British Thermal Units (known as “quads”) of raw energy inputs that flowed into the US economy in 2012, only 37.0 quads were constructively used at the end of the day (as “energy services”). The other 58.1 quads were, in essence, wasted. This waste, summarized in the top right of the diagram, is euphemistically classified as “rejected energy.”


?resize=570%2C380
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (July 2012)


As has been the case for decades, most of the economy’s energy waste stems from electricity generation (because most power plants are relatively inefficient) and the transportation sector (internal-combustion vehicles are also notoriously inefficient, but they are getting better)...

Read more at http://cleantechnica.com/2013/08/26/us-wastes-61-86-of-its-energy/#fHSJlgyCQObqxuPk.99

[eridani]

10. Legalize it and they can grow it outside like nature intended n/t

[truedelphi]

14. Exactly!! n/t

[stuntcat]

28. TY!

It's a plant! Also a medicine and a building material and probably a million other uses.
Humans make me sad how dumb they can be

[tridim]

17. For accuracy, "PROHIBITION causes US marijuana growers consume 1% of nation's electricity" nt

[OnionPatch]

18. +1000

End prohibition. Let growers come out into the sunshine!

[Bigmack]

20. How about some data on how much energy

gets used by the military and the arms industry? What do YOU want YOUR energy being used for? Killing people, or making them high? How much energy does the production to tobacco products use? I'm not exactly defending the use of energy by pot growers, but I do think that there are FAR more important issues related to energy use in this STRANGE land. Ms Bigmack

[kristopher]

21. Great,, I look forward to reading it when you post it.

The point of that article is that we are using a lot of energy because of a bad set of policies that outlaw a drug far, far, far less harmful than alcohol and that substantial reductions in GHG emisisons would result from different policies.

Is that a message you have a problem with?

[Bigmack]

25. No!

Pot production is FiNE with me! And what exactly were you thinking I was gonna post?

[kristopher]

26. It's fine with me also. I wish my state was as progressive as CA.

I thought you were suggesting additional information that isn't related directly to the OP. It would be great if you'd share the results of you work to find it.

[Bigmack]

30. Sorry but life's chores have left me

bone-ass weary these days…..BUT I will say that I'm from a VERY progressive state - in Washington state we voted to LEGALIZE Maryjane. So….come north, tho it's COLD there these days, and we're down in the desert for a while! So no high times for us these days….. Ms Bigmack

[kristopher]

31. Yes you did!!!

And thank you very much for leading the way. It really is only a matter of time until the rest of the country has the sense to follow. In a long list of stupid, self destructive policies this nation has pursued in my lifetime, I believe the War on Drugs to be one of the worst.

Maybe we'll take your suggestion and make our way out there someday.

Have a pleasant evening and be sure to keep warm.