Up In Smoke
Your great grandparents were knuckle-dragging barbarians. They grew their food in :gasp: dirt and let the sun and rain get ALL over everything. Yuck.
Luckily, we now live in a bright, clean world of nutrient broth, halogen bulbs, and air filters. No more trudging out into the nasty world to pick crops, we can grow everything from herbs to um… herb in the comfort and safety of our homes.
Sarcasm aside, I must say that I’ve been quite surprised by the up-tick in the popularity of hydroponics and indoor gardening of late. Granted, it’s always been popular with marijuana growers as a way to control moisture, light, and pests while simultaneously avoiding detection. I’m more surprised to find people using hydroponic systems to grow things like lettuce or herbs in the kitchen.
Really, people? Really?
Okay, I get it. I live in a condo with more trees and fewer windows. I don’t have acres of garden space, and my kitchen is too shady to grow sun-loving herbs.
But for Beet’s sake, go to the farmer’s market and buy something from someone who does have those resources. I’ve never once thought, “Gosh, I wish I could grow a tomato using coal and nuclear power.”
And that’s the reality – all of this indoor/hydroponic senselessness comes with a cost. Instead of soaking up free, dependable sunlight, these setups are literally mining and burning for the energy it takes to grow a salad or a smoke. And it’s the smoke that set me on this tirade in the first place.
credit: Medical Marijuana Project
A new independent study from Evan Mills, an energy and environmental systems analyst currently working for the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, claims that:
…indoor Cannabis production results in energy expenditures of $5 billion each year, with electricity use equivalent to that of 2 million average U.S. homes. This corresponds to 1% of national electricity consumption or 2% of that in households. The yearly greenhouse-gas pollution (carbon dioxide, CO2 ) from the electricity plus associated transportation fuels equals that of 3 million cars. Energy costs constitute a quarter of wholesale value.
From the perspective of individual consumers, a single Cannabis cigarette [read: joint] represents 2 pounds of CO2 emissions, an amount equal to running a 100-watt light bulb for 17 hours with average U.S. electricity.
I don’t know whether 1% sounds like a big or small number to you, but to me it sounds huge for a single source. To put that into perspective:
The approximately 22 billion kilowatt-hours/year estimated for indoor Cannabis production is about one-third that of US data centers or one-sixth that of US household refrigerators.
So remember, next time you get the urge to burn one down, ask your local drug dealer whether his goods are grown outside with organic practices and fair wages for the “farmer.” You don’t want your weed grown on a “factory farm,” do you? 
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