The marijuana plant
looks like a weed.
It blends well
with nature,
so people
used to
secretly
plant them
outdoors,
in between
other plants.
Of course
the plants
were not
legal then.
And the plants
were much less
powerful, and
much less
expensive,
than today's
products.
Today's
business
of growing
legal marijuana
indoors uses
a huge amount
of electricity.
The profit margin
must be high,
because the
electricity cost
can be 20% of
total production
costs.
Growing marijuana
is consuming at least
4% of our country’s
electricity (1% for
legal plants, and 3%
for illegal plants ).
Estimates are tough
because most
plants are illegal.
The $350 billion
cannabis industry
may be the most
energy-intensive
industry in the world.
Indoors growers use
electricity for heating,
ventilation, fans, their
air-conditioning systems,
and 24-hour indoor
lighting rigs at multiple
growing sites.
Even in states
where marijuana
is legal, the
production still
tends to be done
in underground
operations,
using whatever
amount of electricity
makes the plants grow
the fastest (a lot).
2014:
The NPCC
4,000 to 6,000
kilowatt-hours (kWh)
of energy to produce
a single kilogram
of marijuana product.
2015:
A 5,000-square-foot
indoor facility in
Boulder County
consumed ~41,808
kilowatt-hours
per month,
or nearly
66x times
the average
consumption
by a household
in the county.
More than 2% of the city’s
electricity usage went to
legal marijuana production.
2016:
The state of Oregon
legalized recreational
marijuana in 2016.
Pacific Power
in Portland
recorded
seven blackouts
that the company
traced back to
local marijuana
production.
Steven Corson,
a Portland
General Electric
(PGE) spokesman,
said:
“We don’t track
the numbers
specifically related
to cannabis producers,
but some have created
dangerous situations
by overloading existing
equipment.”
In Denver, 45% of
the increase in
energy demand
or “load growth”
was directly linked
to electricity used for
marijuana growth.
2017:
A 2017 study by
New Frontier Data
revealed that only
25% of marijuana
is produced legally.
( Recreational weed
was legal in only 11 states
and Washington DC. )
Scientist Evan Mills,
at the Lawrence Berkeley
National Laboratory,
says that
production
of legal
marijuana
in the US
consumes 1%
of total electricity,
or 41.71 billion
kilowatt-hours (kWh)
of electricity, at a cost
of $6 billion per year.
That’s enough energy
to power 3.8 million homes,
or the entire State of Georgia.
Generating that much electricity
spews out 15m tons of greenhouse
gas emissions (CO2), or about
what three million average cars
would produce in a year.
Assuming the illegal
marijuana growers
use a similar amount
of electricity as the
legal growers,
the 1%
of electricity use,
for legal marijuana,
becomes 4% of total
U.S. electricity use
to grow legal and
illegal marijuana !
Solstice, a Washington based
marijuana producer, uses
1,000W high intensity discharge
lamps (HID), for the vegetative
phase of growth.
Colorado, a leading cannabis
state, where most of the
electricity is coal-powered,
requires commercial growers
to either pay a 2c charge
per kW or offset their
electricity use with
renewable energy
( the average electricity rate
in Denver is 11.05 cents per kWh ).
The accrued funds go to
the Energy Impact Offset Fund
where they are used to finance
sustainable cannabis cultivation
and also educate growers.
Seattle City Light is
incentivizing growers
to shift to more efficient
lighting technologies.
The public utility
has promised six-figure
rebates to growers
who switch
to LED lights
to LED lights
instead of using
power-guzzling HIDs.