People growing marijuana indoors use 1 percent of the U.S. electricity supply, and they create 17 million metric tons of carbon dioxide every year (not counting the smoke exhaled) according to a report by Evan Mills, an energy analyst at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. After medical pot use was made legal in California in 1996, Mills says, per-person residential electricity use in Humboldt County jumped 50 percent compared to other parts of the state. In order to produce some 17,000 metric tons of marijuana this year, Mills estimates authorized growers will use $5 billion worth of energy. That works out to the output of seven big electric power plants. http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfranc...arijuana-causes-global-warming.html?ana=e_pft
Humboldt County has seen no significant increase in pot production due to medical marijuana laws, or for any other reason. They have been at maximum production levels for nearly 6 consecutive decades. All that changed is now some previous customers have registered under the law and some growers have registered under the law. A bigger impact on electrical use is simply the fact that Humboldt County has developed and modernized considerably since 1996, from a backwoods rural area with little technology to one where people now have pc's, cell phones and big screen tv's.
Deliberately misleading thread title. And how does he know that the growers aren't using renewable energy? Liar! Hippies smoke outdoor.
A buddy of mine had a rental that the tenants turned into a grow op. They bypassed the meter and stole electricity. When they were busted, insurance wouldn't cover the damage to the house. It wasn't just the rewiring, it was remediating the mold growing the weed caused. The house had to be almost gutted. PGE estimated the stolen amount of electricity was in the tens of thousands of dollars, which thankfully the maggots had to pay themselves. No money left over to fix my friend's house, however.
I saw an episode on Holmes on Homes on HGTV about the same thing. It's insane how much damage was done to the house.
