Imagine a new industry with a product that, during production, could suck up solar energy naturally. Now imagine we decide to ban this industry from using natural sunlight. That would be kind of weird, right?
That's what's about to happen in Colorado. After they legalized a plant last November, the governor's task force is recommending a ban on outdoor growing. The regulations are ultimately up to lawmakers, so maybe it's not too late. I just hope the industry's impact on the environment will even be debated.
Evan Mills, long-time energy analyst and Staff Scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, University of California, researched the environmental impact of growing marijuana indoors. His research was conducted in 2011, when marijuana production was legal in 15 states for medicinal use.
His findings on indoor marijuana grows include:
- Lights used are 500 times more powerful than reading lights
- Energy production costs are $6 billion a year, 6 times that of the entire pharmaceutical industry
- Represents 1% of national electricity use and 3% of California's
- 11x the energy used in greenhouses
- Defining “efficiency” as how much energy is required to generate economic value, it comes out the highest of all 21 industries, followed next by paper, nonmetallic mineral products, primary metals, petroleum and coal products, and then chemicals
- Requires 8-times as much energy per square foot as a typical US commercial building, 4x that of a hospital and 20x that of a building for religious worship, and 18-times that of an average US home
- 1/6 the energy usage of refrigerators
1/6 the energy usage of refrigerators, eh? Almost every household has a refrigerator. Less than 10% of Americans are regular marijuana users. Not to mention that marijuana, unlike refrigerators, has a built in system to convert the suns energy into fuel known as photosynthesis. Yet even though it was only legal in fewer than 1/3 of the states at the time of the study, indoor grows amounted to 1/6 the energy of refrigerators.
Here's what I think is going on. The state of Colorado is worried about control. Indoor grows are discreet and can offer higher security. Outdoor grows are out in the open, and given that this is a valuable and controversial plant, a number of challenges are posed for the state that are less of an issue for say, wine vineyards. There's the whole what if a child sees a marijuana garden. Lions and tigers and bears, oh my.
Moreover, most growers prefer growing indoors. It allows for complete control over the atmosphere, light exposure, water and nutrients, etc. It also makes them easier to avoid federal detection. In my opinion, if the industry was free to move outdoors the technology would catch up. See this piece from Wired about the huge technological advances in the wine industry.
In every other industry, we're moving towards energy efficiency. That's one of the reasons researcher Evan Mills was motivated to study the topic:
Decades of criminalization has resulted in this energy-using sector being passed over by massive efforts to incentivize and mandate efficiency improvements. The analysis does suggest a role for improved management of energy use, in much the same way that we address the energy use and fuel economy of our cars, buildings, and appliances... In a scenario where production is legalized it is, in principal, easier to address the energy issues.
It shouldn't just be easier in in principle. The time is here and it should be the reality. This is pretty much the first time marijuana has been legalized anywhere, ever, so there's a lot going on in the heads of the people who tasked with drawing up regulations. But environmental impact needs to be part of the dialogue.