Knock-on effects, dude

Study – Pot Growers Inhale 1% of U.S. Electricity, Exhale GHGs of 3M Cars:

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.

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Narrowing the implications even further reveals some staggering numbers. Mills said a single marijuana cigarette represents 2 pounds of CO2 emissions, an amount equal to running a 100-watt light bulb for 17 hours.

“The added electricity use [to an average home] is equivalent to running about 30 refrigerators,” Mills wrote. “Processed cannabis results in 3,000 times its weight in CO2 emissions. For off-grid production, it requires 70 gallons of diesel fuel to produce one indoor cannabis plant, or 140 gallons with smaller, less-efficient gasoline generators.”

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By some estimates, marijuana has long been the largest cash crop in the United States — ahead of corn, soybeans and hay. The industry has been pegged at about $40 billion in value, with California, Tennessee, Kentucky, Hawaii and Washington the top five production states.

Water consumption is also an issue when it comes to environmental impact, with each marijuana plant said to need between 3 and 5 gallons of water per day to grow to fruition.

Click here (pdf) to read Mills’ study.

And nothing, not so much as a single bloody sentence, about the carbon and water footprints of the obligatory post-cannabis snacks? Are we to assume blithely that Nacho Doritos, Tostitos and salsa, Pepperidge Farm Milanos, etc., all appear magically and with zero environmental impact?

I so detest shoddy science…